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IDEAS 


SCIENCE  OF  GOOD  GOVERNMENT 


«  IN 


ADDRESSES,  LETTERS  AND  ARTICLES 


STRICTLY    NATIONAL    CURRENCY,   TARIFF    AND 
CIVIL    SERVICE. 


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HON.  PETER  COOPER,  LL.D. 


SECOND  EDITION. 


COOPER  INSTITUTE. 


NEW   YORK: 

TROWS  PRINTING  AND   BOOKBINDING   COMPANY, 
201-213  EAST  TWELFTH  STREET. 

1883. 


COPYMGHT,  1883, 

PETER    COOPER. 
t  2  d»J5' 


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,     Or  tt  .A.  3<T  X)  -  C  H  I 


THE  PUPILS  OF  COOPER  INSTITUTE. 


PETEE    COOPER. 


PREFACE. 


As  this  compilation  of  ideas  from  my  intercourse  and 
correspondence  with  statesmen,  divines,  scholars,  artists, 
inventors,  merchants,  manufacturers,  mechanics  and  labor- 
ers, may  contribute  to  a  "Science  of  Good  Government" 
based  on  a  strictly  national  currency,  tariff  and  civil  ser- 
vice, see  p.  212,  I  consider  it  my  duty  to  transmit  them 
to  posterity  in  book  form. 

In  our  young  country  these  three  topics  are  of  the 
greatest  importance,  and  must  be  regarded  as  the  founda- 
tion for  all  governmental  superstructures.  "When  this  na- 
tion, numbering  now  fifty  millions,  can  realize  that  before 
these  three  topics  all  others  must  dwindle  into  insignifi- 
cance, she  will  have  attained  the  highest  degree  of  political 
wisdom.  I  have  had  much  personal  experience  in  prac- 
tical business  and  money  affairs  for  the  last  seventy  years : 
over  thirty  years  ago  I  learned  finance  with  our  veteran 
financier,  Albert  Gallatin,  who  was  Secretary  of  Treasury 
under  Jefferson  and  Madison.  He  was  President  of  "  The 
Xew  York  Board  of  Currency,"  of  which  I  was  Vice- 
President.  About  that  time  I  corresponded  with  Secretary 
Robert  J.  Walker  on  the  tariff.  Since  then  I  have  been 


V  PEEFACE. 

engaged  in  large  financial,  manufacturing  and  educational 
operations,  such  as  railroads,  telegraph,  Atlantic  cable,  iron, 
steel,  Cooper  Institute,  etc.  .  .  . 

This  varied  experience  and  my  daily  reading  enabled 
me  to  think,  converse,  speak  and  write  on  finance,  tariff 
and  civil  service,  which  I  tried  to  combine  in  this  vol- 
ume. Since  the  Rebellion  broke  out,  I  sent  petitions  and 
letters  to  Congress,  to  the  President  and  his  Cabinet,  and 
raised  my  voice  in  favor  of  a  strictly  national  currency,  a 
protective  tariff,  and  a  wise  civil  service,  as  will  appear 
in  the  following  pages. 

PETER  COOPER. 

9  LEXINGTON  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK, 
January  30,  1883. 


COIN  AID  PAPER  CURRENCY. 


PETITION  TO  CONGEESS,  DECEMBEE  14,  1862. 

To  the  Honorable  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of 
the  United  States : 

Your  petitioner  desires  most  respectfully  to  call  and  fix. 
the  attention  of  Congress  on  the  unmeasured  consequences, 
that  now  depend  on  a  'speedy  adoption  of  a  financial  policy, 
calculated  to  maintain  the  force  and  power  of  the  Govern- 
ment in  its  struggle  for  the  nation's  life,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  give  the  required  stability  and  facilities  to  enable 
the  people  to  carry  on  to  the  best  advantage  all  the  agri- 
cultural, mechanical,  and  commercial  interests  of  the  country. 

Your  petitioner  believe.s,  that  every  other  act  of  legisla- 
tion dwindles  into  insignificance,  when  compared  with  an 
act,  on  which  all  business  interests  are  more  or  less  de- 
pendent, and  connected  with  the  honor  and  life  of  the 
nation  itself. 

In  view  of  consequences  and  responsibilities  so  tremen- 
dous, your  petitioner  does  most  humbly  pray,  that  no  time 
should  be  lost  in  perfecting  laws,  that  will  embody  the 
highest  wisdom  and  virtue  of  an  intelligent  people,  for  the 
people's  benefit. 


2  COIN  AND   PAPER   CTIKKENCY. 

In  the  opinion  of  your  petitioner  the  Constitution  makes 
it  the  solemn  duty  of  Congress  to.  coin  money  and  regulate 
the  value  thereof,  of  all  that  shall  be  known  and  used  as 
money  throughout  the  United  States.  The  faithful  per- 
formance of  this  duty  by  the  Government  will  more  effect- 
ually secure  the  rewards  of  labor  to  the  hand,  that  earns 
it,  and  more  effectually  aid  all  the  useful  industries  of  the 
country,  than  any  and  all  other  measures,  that  can  be 
adopted. 

PETER  COOPER. 


PETITION  TO,  CONGRESS. 

To  the  Honorable  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives 
of  the  United  States : 

Your  petitioner,  in  view  of  the  paralyzed  condition  of  all 
the  varied  industries  of  our  country,  causing,  as  it  has,  an 
almost  universal  embarrassment  by  the  shrinkage  in  values 
of  all  forms  of  property,  thereby  rendering  it  impossible  to 
give  the  needed  employment  to  suffering  millions,  who  have 
nothing  to  sell  but  their  labor — your  petitioner  desires  hum- 
bly to  represent,  that  in  his  opinion  a  single  act  of  Congress, 
added  to  the  lately  passed  financial  law,  will  secure  for  the 
United  States  the  best  paper  circulating  medium,  that  our 
country  or  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

To  do  this  it  is  only  necessary  to  set  forth  and  declare, 
that  the  present  legal  tender  money,  now  in  circulation,  shall 
never  be  increased  or  diminished,  only  as  per  capita  with 
the  increase  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  country,  and  that  the 
Government  shall  receive  the  legal  tenders  in  payment  for  all 
duties  and  debts,  with  an  amount  of  currency  equal  in  aver- 
age value  to-the  average  premium,  that  gold  has  borne  dur- 
ing the  month  preceding  the  maturing  of  all  contracts. 

To  secure  to  our  country  a  tool,  as  Bonamy  Price  calls 
money,  of  such  inestimable  value,  and  at  the  same  time  se- 
cure for  our  country  a  degree  of  stability  in  the  operations 
of  trade  and  commerce  hitherto  unknown — to  do  this  it  will 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  3 

only  be  necessary  for  the  Government  to  receive  legal  ten- 
ders in  payment  for  all  duties  and  debts,  etc. 

This  plan  will  make  it  the  interest  of  every  man  to  bring 
and  maintain  the  legal  tenders  on  a  par  with  gold  in  the 
shortest  possible  time.  If  this  can  be  done  it  will  give  per- 
manence and  stability  to  that  which  measures  all  the  prop- 
erty of  the  country,  etc.  .  .  . 

There  is  no  way,  by  which  Congress  can  so  effectually 
establish  justice  and  promote  the  welfare  of  a  nation  as  by 
securing  for  it  a  just  and  uniform  system  of  money,  weights, 
and  measures. 


I  learned  from  my  friend,  Silas  M.  Stilwell,  who  was  the 
confidential  adviser  of  Secretary  Chase,  at  the  time  of  our 
nation's  greatest  peril,  that  he  saw  my  petition  in  the  hand 
of  Secretary  Chase,  at  the  time  when  he  was  saying,  that 
he  had  some  fifty  millions  of  bills  audited,  and  not  a  dollar 
in  the  Treasury.  In  such  a  dilemma  with  the  fact  before 
him,  that  the  first  four  loans,  called  for,  were  promptly  taken 
up,  and  more  money  was  offered  at  five  and  six  per  cent, 
than  the  call  would  allow  them  to  take. 

Mr.  Stilwell  stated,  that  he  had  labored  with  Secretary 
Chase  for  two  or  three  weeks,  trying  to  show  him,  that 
Treasury  Notes,  based  on  the  credit  of  the  nation  and  made 
receivable  for  all  forms  of  taxes,  duties,  and  debts,  would  be 
gladly  accepted  by  the  people,  and  that  without  a  promise 
to  pay  gold. 

Mr.  Chase  was  determined,  that  no  paper  should  be  issued, 
without  promise  to  pay  gold  and  silver  on  demand.  Mr. 
Stilwell  labored  for  many  days  to  show  how  interest  could 
be  used  as  a  floating  power  for  Treasury  Notes  with  the 
Legal  Tender  principle  as  a  forcing  power,  which  would 
float  an  amount  of  Treasury  Notes,  that  would  meet  all  the 
expenses  of  the  war. 

This  plan  would  have  been,  in  effect,  like  the  plan,  recom- 


4  COIN  AND  PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

mended  by  Franklin  and  Jefferson.  Benjamin  Franklin 
says,  that  no  plan  has  yet  been  devised,  equal  in  all  its  ad- 
vantages for  a  currency  to  Treasury  Notes,  made  a  general 
Legal  Tender. 

Having  labored  for  many  days  to  convince  Secretary 
Chase  without  effect,  Mr.  Stilwell  informed  him,  that  he 
believed  his  services  were  at  an  end,  and  that  he  should 
leave  that  evening  for  his  home  in  ]STew  York. 

Mr.  Stilwell  informed  me,  that  he  had  but  just  got  home, 
when  he  received  a  telegram,  begging  him  to  come  imme- 
diately back,  as  he  had  learned,  that  the  banks  had  all  failed 
to  pay  specie,  as  they  had  promised. 

Thomas  Jefferson  unites  with  Franklin,  and  declares, 
"  That  Treasury  Notes,  bottomed  on  taxes,  bearing  or  not 
bearing  interest,  is  the  only  fund,  on  which  the  Government 
can  rely  for  loans;  and  it  is  an  abundant  one  for  every 
necessary  purpose." 

The  plan,  recommended  by  Thomas  Jefferson  was  and  is 
in  exact  accordance  with  the  imperative  demand  of  a  Con- 
stitution, expressly  formed  to  establish  justice. 

Mr.  Stilwell  returned  at  the  request  of  Secretary  Chase, 
who  then  asked  Mr.  Stilwell  to  write  out  the  propositions 
he  had  made.  On  the  urgent  request  of  Secretary  Chase, 
Mr.  Stilwell  wrote  out  his  plan  for  the  issue  of  Treasury 
Notes  on  the  principle  Thomas  Jefferson  had  declared,  was 
the  only  one,  on  which  the  Government  could  rely  for  loans. 

Thomas  Jefferson,  in  view  of  the  banks,  that  then  ex- 
isted, declared  that  "  bank  paper  must  be  suppressed,  and 
the  circulating  medium  must  be  restored  to  the  nation,  to 
whom  it  properly  belongs" 

Secretary  Chase  was  compelled  by  the  overwhelming 
powers  of  a  terrible  war  to  finally  consent  to  adopt  the 
plan,  written  out  by  Mr.  Stilwell ;  and  he  says :  "  he  was 
forced  to  cut  up  small  pieces  of  paper  to  circulate  as  money, 
based  on  the  credit  of  the  people,  whose  property  it  was  in- 
tended to  represent." 

That  paper  was  real  fiat  money,  with  the  stamp  of  the 


COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY.  5 

Government  on  it,  declaring  its  first  issues  as  a  full  Legal 
Tender  in  payment  of  all  delis,  public  and  private  ;  and  at 
the  option  of  its  owner  convertible  into  a  liond,  bearing  free 
and  six  per  cent,  interest  for  the  amount  so  converted.  There 
has  been  no  day  since  when  that  money  was  not  worth  as 
much  as  gold. 

During  the  last  twenty  years  I  have  sent  thousands  of 
documents  broad-cast  over  our  country.  In  all  I  have  writ- 
ten, I  tried  to  make  plain  the  fact,  that  the  Government  of 
our  country  has,  by  a  train  of  unconstitutional,  invalidating 
financial  laws  wrongfully  taken  from  the  American  people, 
since  our  late  war,  more  than  seventeen  hundred  millions  of 
dollars,  that  were  actually  paid  by  the  Government  for  value 
received  in  the  labor  and  property,  that  were  used  and  con- 
sumed in  the  prosecution  of  the  terrible  war,  through  which 
we  have  passed. 

It  fell  to  my  lot  in  the  early  part  of  my  business  life  to 
learn  an  invaluable  lesson  from  the  disgraceful  failure  of 
the  United  States  Bank. 

I  saw  that  bank,  with  its  thirty-five  millions  of  dollars 
capital,  authorized  to  issue  four  dollars  of  paper  for  every 
dollar  of  their  capital,  and  all  in  promise  to  pay  silver  and 
gold  on  demand.  I  knew,  thai;  such  a  bank,  with  its  branches 
in  every  state,  would  be  a  power,  that  our  Government  could 
never  control. 

S.  M.  Stilwell,  in  his  essay  on  banking,  says :  "  We,  as  a 
nation,  have  experimented  with,  and  dealt  in  all  kinds  of 
credits  from  individual  to  national,  etc.  .  .  .  We  had  private 
bankers,  State  banks,  and  twice  we  have  tried  national  banks ; 
and  all  have  proved  unsafe  and  unsatisfactory. 

"  The  plain  command,  found  in  the  Constitution  to  regu- 
late commerce  between  the  States,  has  been  neglected  by 
Congress;  and  instead  of  binding  the  States  together  for 
commercial  purposes,  the  money-power  has  been  left  to  the 
separate  States  to  be  exercised  under  a  doubtful  construction 

of  the  organic  law." 

PETER  COOPEK. 


6  COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

WASHINGTON  AND  ADAMS  OPPOSED  TO  HAVE  BANK  OFFICIALS 
OCCUPY  SEATS  IN  CONGRESS. 

On  page  20  of  the  Journal  of  the  United  States  Senate, 
first  session  of  the  Third  Congress,  commenced  at  Philadel- 
phia, Pennsylvania,  December  2, 1Y93,  can  be  found  the  fol- 
lowing resolution,  offered  on  the  23d  of  December  the  same 
year,  and  passed  by  the  United  States  Senate  with  but  two 
dissenting  votes,  and  signed  by  George  Washington,  Presi- 
dent, and  John  Adarns,  Yice-President :  "ANY  PERSON, 

HOLDING  ANY  OFFICE  OB  ANY  STOCK  IN  ANY  INSTITUTION  IN 
THE  NATURE  OF  A  BANK  FOR  ISSUING  OR  DISCOUNTING  BILLS  OR 
NOTES  PAYABLE  TO  BEARER  OR  ORDER,  CANNOT  BE  A  MEMBER 
OF  THE  HOUSE  WHILST  HE  HOLDS  SUCH  OFFICE  OR  STOCK." 

Yet,  a  late  Congress  was  composed  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty  bankers,  ninety-nine  lawyers,  fourteen  merchants,  thir- 
teen manufacturers,  seven  doctors,  four  mechanics,  and  not 
a  single  farmer  or  day  laborer.  This  is  agreeable  to  a  state- 
ment made  by  Moses  W.  Field,  M.  C. 

I  think  this  law  was  invoked  to  prevent  A.  T.  Stewart, 
the  largest  importer  of  foreign  goods,  from  becoming  Sec- 
retary of  the  Treasury. 

Why  should  it  not  be  enforced  now  to  oust  speculators 
from  our  Congress,  where  they  are  making  laws  in  their  own 
favor  and  against  the  interest  of  the  people  ? 

The  wise  men,  who  achieved  the  Independence,  drafted 
the  Constitution  and  established  our  Government,  well  knew 
that  it  was  unsafe  to  trust  the  governmental  law-making  to 
bankers,  usurers,  or  any  one  interested  in  such  business. 
They  knew  it  was  morally  impossible  for  persons,  interested 
in  money-lending,  not  to  attempt  to  legislate  in  their  own 
favor  and  against  the  good  of  the  people. 

I  ever  did  and  ever  shall  advocate  a  purely  national  cur- 
rency, as  long  as  I  live,  as  the  only  remedy  against  periodic 
stagnation,  caused  by  special  legislation,  suggested  and  voted 
by  banking  representatives  and  speculators  in  the  seats  of  our 
Congress. 


COIN   AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY.  7 

Washington  and  Adams  tried  to  imitate  the  Master,  in 
driving  the  money-changers  out  of  Congress ;  but  as  yet 
their  legislation  has  not  succeeded  as  Christ  did  nineteen 
centuries  ago.  We  must  hope  the  people  will  become  so 
enlightened,  as  to  expel  them  by  an  overwhelming  vote. 

Washington  declared  a  fact,  when  he  said,  that  "  In  ex- 
act proportion  as  we  either  alloy  the  precious  metals,  or 
pour  paper  money  into  the  volume  of  the  circulating  me- 
dium, just  in  that  proportion  will  everything  in  a  country 
rise,  and  labor  will  be  the  last,  that  will  feel  it.  It  will 
not  benefit  the  farmer  or  the  mechanic,  as  it  will  only  en- 
able the  debtor  to  pay  his  debt  with  a  shadow  instead  of  a 
substance." 

This  was  in  answer  to  a  letter  from  a  member  of  the 
Maryland  Legislature,  asking  Washington's  opinion  as  to  the 
right  of  a  State  to  issue  paper  money.  He  did  not  believe 
in  contraction  and  inflation,  that  cause  periodic  panics. 

PETER  COOPER. 
NEW  YORK,  Sept.  30,  1871. 

ARTICLE,  DATING  TO  1863-1867. 

The  nation,  having  found  itself  in  a  terrible  war,  and 
having  exhausted  all  the  means  in  its  power  to  obtain  gold 
and  silver  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  Government,  our  people 
were  compelled  to  see  the  country  overpowered  by  its 
enemies,  or  to  resort  to  a  kind  of  forced  loan,  drawing  from 
the  people  by  taking  all  forms  of  their  property  and  labor 
and  giving  them  in  payment  treasury  notes,  demand  notes, 
and  the  several  forms  of  bonds  in  the  shape  of  a  currency  to 
obtain  the  necessary  supplies  to  move  and  maintain  armies, 
sufficient  to  save  the  life  of  the  nation.  When  the  great 
and  good  work  was  accomplished,  a  work,  which  gold  and 
silver  had  failed  to  perform,  then  the  amounts,  so  expended 
for  that  purpose,  should  have  been  regarded  as  the  most 
sacred  treasure  of  the  country,  and  should  -have  been  made 
the  permanent,  unfluctuating  measure  of  all  values  through- 


8  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

out  our  whole  country  for  all  coming  time,  and  never  to 
be  increased  or  diminished,  only  as  per  capita  with  the  in- 
crease of  the  inhabitants  of  the  country. 

To  ordain  and  secure  such  an  unfluctuating  measure  of 
all  values  for  all  property  throughout  the  vast  extent  of  our 
country,  and  make  gold  perform  its*  proper  function,  would 
have  been  a  compensation  of  more,  than  equal  value  to  the 
country,  to  more  than  replace  the  whole  cost  of  the  war  of 
the  Rebellion. 

The  currency,  so  expended  in  saving  the  life  of  the  nation, 
should  have  been  considered  of  more  value  than  gold  itself ; 
because  it  performed  a  work,  that  was  entirely  out  of  the 
power  of  gold  and  silver  to  accomplish;  so  that  every 
dollar,  expended  in  whatever  shape,  or  whatever  kind  of 
value  received,  became  as  so  much  money,  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  people,  and  would  not  only  have  enabled  them 
to  carry  on  the  war,  but  to  pay  the  entire  debt  of  the  nation 
without  inconvenience,  if  the  amount  of  the  people's  money, 
found  in  circulation  at  the  close  of  the  war,  had  been  al- 
lowed to  remain  as  the  tools  of  trade,  the  life-blood  of 
commerce  in  their  possession;  but  by  shrinking  the  cur- 
rency and  by  taxing  the  people,  and  then  taking  their 
money  to  purchase  bonds,  that  were  not  due  for  twenty 
years,  when  the  people  were  more  in  need  of  their  own 
means  and  the  aid  of  Government,  than  ever  before  to 
enable  them  to  provide  for  the  disbanded  army,  that  had  no 
other  means  to  live,  or  anything  to  sell  but  their  labor ;  by 
the  shrinkage  of  the  currency,  all  forms  of  labor  were  dried 
up.  The  source  of  all  consumption  and  production  was 
alike  destroyed,  and  a  general  ruin  spread  far  and  wide  over 
our  country. 

Had  the  original  law,  which  made  paper  money  receiv- 
able for  all  forms  of  duties  and  debts,  and  convertible  into 
six  per  cent,  interest-bearing  bonds,  been  continued,  we 
would  not  only,  have  had  all  our  bonds  taken  at  home,  but 
prosperity  would  have  still  smiled  on  our  country. 

As  it  is  now,  the  Government  has  taken  from  the  people 


COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEEJSTCY.  9 

the  tools  of  their  trade,  and  has  used  its  power  contrary  to 
the  interests  of  the  people,  in  the  purchase  of  bonds  not 
due  for  twenty  years,  loading  the  people  with  taxes,  destroy- 
ing and  breaking  up  the  business  of  the  country. 

Nothing  short  of  a  compliance  with  the  very  first  re- 
quirement of  the  Constitution  will  stay  the  torrent  of  evil, 
and  restore  prosperity  again  to  our  suffering  people.  The 
establishment  of  justice  demands,  that  the  people  should 
have  the  same  amount  of  currency  continued,  to  enable 
them  to  pay  the  debts  of  the  nation,  that  was  required  to 
enable  them  to  prosecute  the  war. 

The  Government,  having  taken  all  forms  of  property 
and  labor  from  the  people,  gave  them  treasury  notes  as 
an  equivalent  for  gold,  as  long  as  they  had  it ;  and  when 
they  had  not  the  paper  promise  of  the  Government,  legal 
tenders,  receivable  for  debts,  taxes,  etc. 

PETER  COOPER. 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  UNION  LEAGUE  CLUB,  1867. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Union  League  Club: 

I  find  myself  impelled  by  an  irresistible  desire  to  call  and 
fix  the  attention  of  every  lover  of  his  kind  and  country  on 
those  appalling  causes,  that  have  so  effectually  paralyzed  the 
varied  industries  of  our  people.  Those  causes  have  been 
sufficient  to  shrink  the  real  estate  of  the  nation  to  one-half 
the  amount  it  would  have  brought  three  years  ago ;  and  that 
without  having  shrunk  at  the  same  time  any  of  the  debts, 
which  had  been  contracted  by  the  use  of  money,  authorized 
by  the  Government  of  our  country.  There  is  nothing,  that 
can  be  more  important,  than  to  find  out  and  remove  the 
causes,  that  are  bringing  bankruptcy  and  ruin  to  the  homes 
of  millions  of  the  most  industrious  men  of  our  nation.  The 
national  policy,  which  has  brought  this  frightful  calamity  on 
our  people,  should  receive  the  most  thorough  investigation 


10  COIN  AND   PAPER   CUKKENCY. 

and  the  most  decided  action  by  the  Government  of  our 
country.  There  is  but  one  way  of  relief  out  of  all  this  na- 
tional trouble  and  sorrow.  The  people  themselves  must 
enforce  upon  the  administration  the  obligations,  laid  down 
in  the  Constitution,  "to  establish  justice,  and  thus  secure 
the  general  welfare  of  the  nation."  To  do  this,  let  us  take 
it  out  of  the  power  of  States  or  Corporations  to  make,  or 
unmake,  the  money  of  the  country.  It  is  the  sole  duty  of 
the  Government  to  coin  money,  as  the  Constitution  requires. 
Let  the  Government  itself,  through  its  Administration,  be 
restrained  from  meddling  capriciously  with  the  currency, 
and  only  under  permanent  laws  and  a  well-understood  and 
predetermined  policy,  always  having  reference  to  the  good 
of  the  people. 

Let  us  have  a  national  currency,  issued  solely  by  the  au- 
thority and  supported  in  circulation  by  the  taxing  power 
and  the  solvency  of  our  Government.  Such  a  currency 
should  be  fixed  in  volume,  as  per  capita,  to  the  amount  of 
the  people's  money,  actually  found  in  circulation  at  the 
close  of  the  war ;  and  it  should  be  made  as  certain  and  as 
permanent  in  value  in  -its  measuring  power  as  the  yard, 
pound,  and  bushel,  by  its  being  made  redeemable  for  all 
Government  taxes  and  debts,  except  duties  on  imports.  Our 
Government  is  bound  by  the  requirements  of  the  Constitu- 
tion to  make  the  necessary  and  proper  law,  as  well  as  a  legal 
tender  money  for  all  private  debts.  This  currency  must  be 
always  interconvertible  with  Government  bonds  at  a  low 
rate  of  interest,  as  compared  with  active  investment.  It 
should  be  a  currency,  which  a  bank  or  corporation  cannot 
rightfully  issue,  enlarge,  or  contract  in  its  own  interest,  and 
which  cannot  be  taken  from  the  hands  of  the  people  by  the 
"  ever-shifting  balances  of  commodities  "  between  nations, 
as  is  the  case  with  gold  and  silver,  when  used  as  money.  It 
will  not  be  subject  to  any  sudden  contractions  or  expansions, 
but  will  be  regulated  by  established  law,  based  on  scientific 
facts  and  principles  of  a  just  system  of  national  finances. 
The  treasury  notes  can  be  made  just  such  a  currency.  This 


COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY.  11 

currency  can  always  be  kept  on  an  average  par  with  gold, 
or  the  currency  of  any  other  country,  by  the  encouragement 
and  the  support,  which  it  will  give  to  the  industry  and  the 
productiveness  of  the  country.  It  will  increase  indefinitely 
the  country's  exporting  power.  We  will  then  pay  our 
balances  with  other  nations  with  our  surplus  products, 
and  have  but  little  occasion  for  the  use  of  gold  and  silver  to 
pay  balances  of  trade.  We  can  in  no  way  become  an  ex- 
porting nation,  except  by  stimulating  our  own  productive- 
ness, diversified  and  enlarged  in  every  direction  of  human 
industry,  in  which  our  materials  are  as  good  and  abundant 
as  those  of  other  nations,  and  the  labor  and  skill  are  ready 
for  use,  if  properly  encouraged.  For  this  purpose  I  believe 
it  will  be  wise  for  us  to  remove  all  internal  taxation,  and 
rely  solely  on  a  sufficient  revenue  tariff  to  meet  the  expenses 
of  Government.  This  subject  is  very  much  misunderstood 
or  misrepresented  by  our  own  advocates  of  free  trade.  It 
is  the  surplus  productions  of  foreign  countries  mostly,  that 
reach  our  shores  as  imports,  and  it  is  also  the  surplus  cap- 
ital of  the  importers  and  foreigners,  that  is  employed  to 
bring  them- here.  Hence  it  is  but  right  to  tax  this  surplus 
for  the  absolute  wants  of  our  own  domestic  industry  and 
capital.  This  is  precisely  what  a  tariff  accomplishes.  It 
taxes  the  importer  and  foreigner  chiefly,  who  must  find  a 
market  somewhere,  and  those  of  our  people,  who  will  buy 
and  use  foreign  products,  which  leave  our  own  good  raw  ma- 
terials unused,  and  our  own  domestic  laborers  unemployed. 
This  is  violating  the  first  law  of  nature — self-preservation. 
Let  us  take  care  of  our  own  people  here  at  home,  as  the  first 
duty  of  our  own  Government.  And  let  us  not  make  the 
great  mistake  of  the  governing  classes  in  France,  England, 
and  Germany,  where  the  wages  of  the  operatives  and  work- 
ingmen  are  reduced  to  a  bare  subsistence. 

It  is  this  ignorance  or  want  of  patriotism,  that  stands  in 
the  way  of  the  public  weal,  both  in  the  management  of  our 
finances  and  the  adoption  of  a  judicious  tariff.  The  people 
alone  can  vindicate  their  rights,  and  secure  their  own  wel- 


12  COIN  AND  PAPEE   CTTEEENCY. 

fare,  by  taking  an  intelligent  and  proper  interest  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  their  own  Government.  Let  them  require 
from  this  Administration  a  return  to  the  principles  of  pub- 
lic justice  and  equal  rights.  Let  the  Government  be  re- 
quired in  some  proper  way  to  restore  to  the  people  the  tools 
of  their  trade  and  commerce,  which  have  been  so  unjustly 
and  cruelly  taken  from  them.  Let  there  be  provision  made 
for  the  return  of  the  whole  of  that  currency,  found  in  cir- 
culation at  the  close  of  the  Rebellion,  which  was  worked  out 
and  paid  for  by  the  people  in  the  labor,  material,  and  service, 
which  they  had  rendered  to  the  Government  during  our 
struggle  for  the  nation's  life.  It  was  a  currency,  which  had 
lifted  the  American  people  into  a  state  of  unexampled  pros- 
perity, never  before  known  in  this  or  any  other  country, 
and  which  can  be  restored  to  the  people  by  the  issue  of  treas- 
ury notes,  paid  out  for  the  necessary  expenses  of  Govern- 
ment, for  the  execution  of  great  necessary  international  works, 
such  as  the  Northern  and  Southern  Pacific  railroads,  which, 
when  made,  will  strengthen  the  bonds  of  the  Union,  and 
open  a  vast  country,  with  its  untold  wealth,  for  the  enter- 
prise and  labor  of  the  people.  I  have  sounded  these  notes 
of  encouragement,  warning,  and  advice  time  and  again ;  be- 
cause I  believe  they  are  for  the  peace  and  happiness  of  our 
country.  At  my  advanced  age  I  have  no  personal  ambition 
or  motive  left  but  the  welfare  of  mankind,  and  the  prosper- 
ity of  my  beloved  country.  If  it  were  the  last  word  I  should 
utter  with  my  dying  breath,  I  should  warn  the  people  of 
this  country  against  the  insidious  wiles  of  professed  politi- 
cians, who  are  seeking  for  the  spoils  of  office  and  the  at- 
tractions of  power — men,  who  are  ready  to  lend  themselves 
to  all  special  and  partial  acts  of  legislation,  if  they  can  only 
advance  their  own  individual  interests.  Such  men  oppose 
"  civil  service  " ;  because  it  will  curtail  their  political  patron- 
age ;  such  men  barter  the  rights,  the  prosperity,  and  even 
the  bread  of  the  people,  in  order  to  share  in  the  spoils  and 
the  temporary  gains,  which  are  thrown  into  the  hands  of  a 
few  by  a  pernicious  system  of  banking,  of  which  the  period- 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY.  13 

ical  panics  of  our  country  bear  a  frightful  record.     They  are 
the  natural  outgrowth  of  the  same  injurious  system. 

My  arguments  will  be  confirmed  by  a  reference  to  the 
facts,  stated  in  the  following  letter  in  relation  to  the  cur- 
rency by  F.  E.  Spinner,  the  former  Assistant  Secretary. 
Mr.  Spinner  says,  that  there  was  put  in  circulation,  in  all 
the  forms  of  six  per  cent.,  five  per  cent.,  and  3.65  per 
cent.,  of  legal  tender  money,  $1,152,924,892,  besides  the 
seven-thirties,  $830,000,000,  which  Mr.  Spinner  says  were 
intended,  prepared,  and  used  as  currency.  This  amount  had 
been  paid  out  as  so  many  dollars,  and  had  become  the  peo- 
ple's money,  which  the  Government  was  then  and  forever 
bound  to  receive  from  the  people  as  legal  tender  dollars  for 
every  form  of  taxes,  duties,  and  debts.  The  failure  of  the 
Government  to  do  that  duty  has  cost  the  nation  thousands 
of  millions  of  dollars.  It  will  be  recollected  by  many  mem- 
bers of  this  Club,  that  we  were  favored  on  a  former  occasion 
by  Prof.  White,  of  Cornell  University,  with  an  account  of 
the  losses,  sustained  by  the  people  of  France  by  the  use  of 
assignats,  authorized  by  that  Government.  I  have  always 
regretted,  that  my  esteemed  friend,  Prof.  White,  had  not 
gone  far  enough  into  the  true  history  of  the  rise  and  prog- 
ress of  the  assignats,  to  see  that  the  injurious  losses,  oc- 
casioned by  them  did  not  arise  from  an  improper  action  of 
the  republican  Government,  but  from  the  combined  powers 
of  the  internal  and  external  enemies  of  the  Republic.  This 
will  appear  by  the  following  facts  :  The  assignats  of  France 
were  based  on  the  confiscated  property  of  the  clergy  and 
nobility,  in  which  both  the  clergy  and  nobility  had  a  deep 
interest,  that  led  them  to  denounce  the  assignats,  as  based 
on  theft  and  outrage.  There  was  another  royal  party,  which 
united  in  declaring,  that  their  lands  had  been  taken  without 
any  of  the  forms  of  law,  and  therefore  the  title  still  re- 
mained in  the  clergy.  The  parties  all  united  in  declaring, 
that  the  assignats  were  utterly  without  any  basis  to  secure 
their  redemption.  The  parties  never  ceased  to  agitate  and 
war  on  the  credit  of  the  assignats.  But  finding  the  Eev- 


14  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

olution  too  strong  for  them,  and  that  its  cause  was  being  sa 
successfully  strengthened  by  conquering  the  enemies  of  lib- 
erty and  of  the  nation,  that  other  nations  were  yielding 
to  its  power,  that  its  armies  were  victorious,  and  that  its 
principles,  as  developed  by  the  Constitution  and  laws,  were 
such  as  reason  and  humanity  approved,  history  tells  us,  that 
all  the  enemies  of  the  new  French  Government  united  in  an 
effort  to  destroy  the  power  of  the  new  Government  by  cir- 
culating counterfeit  assignats  in  every  direction.  The  coun- 
terfeiting commenced  in  1792  in  Belgium  and  Switzerland, 
and  was  used  extensively,  as  the  best  means  of  destroying 
the  power  of  the  Republic.  It  was  found  by  the  nobility, 
that  Belgium  and  Switzerland  were  too  much  in  sympathy 
with  the  revolutionists  to  be  trusted.  They  then  extended 
their  operations  to  London,  where  they  found  more  scope 
and  greater  opportunities  for  uninterrupted  work.  History 
charges,  that  England  lent  her  aid  by  allowing  "  seventeen 
manufacturing  establishments  in  operation  in  London,  with 
a  force  of  four  hundred  men,  in  the  production  of  the  as- 
signats." 

It  was  found  that  12,000,000,000  of  counterfeit  francs  had 
been  circulated  in  France,  when  only  7,860,000,000  of  francs 
had  been  issued  by  the  Government,  showing,  that  the  dan- 
ger of  an  over-issue  was  from  the  enemies  of  the  Govern- 
ment, and  not  from  the  Government  itself.  The  assessed 
value  of  "the  property,  on  which  were  based  the  7,860,000,- 
000  of  francs,  was,  in  1795,  15,000,000,000,  showing,  that 
as  long  as  the  confiscation  of  property  was  maintained  by 
the  Government,  the  assignats  had  good  security  for  their 
redemption. 

It  is  more  than  probable,  that  we  shall  see  again  what  are 
called  "  prosperous  times,"  when  the  banks  have  annihilated 
our  greenback  currency,  and  have  substituted  their  own 
money,  on  the  old  and  false  pretense  of  a  "  specie  basis," 
which  makes  their  money  "  as  good  as  gold,"  until  the  gold 
is  really  wanted.  But  I  warn  my  countrymen,  that  this  will 
be  a  baseless  prosperity,  that  can  only  last  while  there  are 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CTJEEENCY.  15 

any  securities  or  property,  that  can  be  pledged  for  loans, 
the  loans  themselves  being  puffed  up  under  the  conceit,  that 
they  are  payable  in  gold ;  then  another  crash  will  come, 
and  we  shall  have  the  same  scenes  of  desolation  and  suffer- 
ing, that  we  have  experienced  as  a  people  for  the  past  three 
years. 

I  do  most  earnestly  beseech  the  American  people  to  see 
to  it,  that  their  chosen  rulers  are  men,  imbued  with  the 
spirit  and  letter  of  the  Constitution,  which,  after  a  great 
struggle,  was  enacted  "  to  establish  justice,  promote  the  gen- 
eral welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves 
and  our  posterity." 

PETER  COOPEE. 


To  PRESIDENT  GRANT. 

NEW  YORK,  December  10,  1873. 
PRESIDENT  GRANT, 

Honored  and  Respected  Sir: 

Allow  me  to  say,  that  the  millions  of  the  unemployed 
people  throughout  our  country  look  with  anxious  hope  to 
our  Government  for  the  adoption  of  some  plan,  that  will 
inspire  confidence  in  those,  who  have  the  means,  to  give  the 
needed  employment,  which  alone  can  save  those  millions  of 
the  unemployed  from  the  desperation  of  starvation,  a  con- 
dition, which  they  see  rapidly  approaching,  and  they  have 
nothing  to  sell  for  their  relief  but  their  labor.  It  is  fortu- 
nate for  our  country,  that  the  Constitution  has  provided,  that 
"  Congress  shall  have  power  ...  to  lay  and  collect  taxes, 
duties,  imposts  and  excises,  to  pay  the  debts,  and  provide 
for  the  common  defence  and  the  general  welfare  of  these 
Fnited  States." 

There  is  nothing,  that  will  so  effectually  relieve  their 
wants,  "  establish  justice,  and  promote  the  general  welfare," 
as  a  uniform  system  of  money,  weights  and  measures. 
There  is  nothing  more  important  for  the  general  welfare, 


16  COIN  AND   PAPEK   CUKRENCY. 

than  a  uniform  system  in  the  value  of  money,  as  it  controls 
all  that  is  measured  by  the  bushel,  the  yard,  or  pound.  It 
measures  as  effectually  the  poor  man's  potatoes,  as  it  does 
the  ric^i  man's  robe. 

Having  been  myself  a  working  man  through  a  long  and 
laborious  life,  I  feel  for  their  condition  and  would  gladly 
better  it,  if  I  could.  At  present,  I  believe,  there  is  not  less 
than  a  thousand  persons  depending  for  their  bread  on  the 
business,  carried  on  within  the  circle  of  our  family. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  able  to  keep  two  rolling  mills 
running,  and  also  two  mills  for  the  manufacture  of  wire 
and  springs,  besides  giving  employment  to  some  two  hun- 
dred persons  in  the  manufacture  of  glue,  oil  and  isinglass. 

"We  have  four  blast  furnaces  now  blown  out  for  the  want 
of  sale  for  the  iron  they  would  produce. 

The  mining  of  ore  for  these  furnaces  must  soon  stop,  un- 
less the  furnaces  can  be  put  in  blast.  No  one  can  contem- 
plate the  continuance  of  the  present  state  of  things,  with- 
out a  feeling  of  horror  at  the  prospect. 

I  herewith  send  you  a  printed  copy  of  a  plan,  that  I  sent 
in  1869  to  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives. 

I  think  you  will  agree  with  me  in  the  opinion  that,  if  the 
plan  for  regulating  the  currency,  then  presented,  could  have 
been  adopted,  it  would  have  saved  us  from  the  ruinous 
panic,  through  which  we  are  now  passing,  and  would  have 
secured  for  our  country  the  resumption  of  specie  payments 
in  the  shortest  possible  time,  and  that  without  doing 
violence  to  any  of  the  great  interests  of  our  country.  If 
this  plan  could  even  now  be  adopted,  it  would  do  more  to 
inspire  confidence  and  revive  the  trade  and  commerce  of 
the  country,  than  any  of  the  plans,  that  have  been  pro- 
posed. The  whole  people  will  soon  come  to  understand, 
that  there  is  no  form  of  wealth,  that  can  be  made  more  se- 
cure than  a  legal  tender  paper  currency,  that  shall  only  be 
allowed  to  increase  as  per  capita,  with  the  increase  of  popu- 
lation. .  .  . 

When  such  a  currency  is  provided  and  made  as  secure  as 


COIN  'AND  PAPEE   CUEEENCY.  17 

a  bond  and  mortgage  on  the  whole  property  of  the  country, 
it  will  not  be  long  before  it  will  be  found,  that  the  principal 
value  of  gold  and  silver  will  be  to  make  purchases  and 
settle  balances  with  foreign  countries.  .  .  . 

With  an  ardent  hope,  that  the  best  means  may  be  adopted 
to  secure  the  highest  welfare  of  the  nation, 

I  remain, 
Yours  with  great  respect, 

PETER  COOPER. 


PETITION  TO  CONGRESS. 

Gentlemen: — The  bill  for  the  refunding  of  the  $637,- 
000,000  of  five  and  six  percent,  bonds,  falling  due  during 
the  year  1881,  that  are  yet  unprovided  for,  is  attracting  very 
great  attention  and  exciting  much  interest  among  the  people 
in  all  parts  of  the  country. 

The  question  of  most  importance  to  the  people,  in  rela- 
tion to  this  bill,  is  not  the  one  as  to  how  this  part  of  the 
debt  shall  be  refunded,  but  as  to  how  it  shall  be  paid. 

There  are  evidently  two  interests  involved  in  the  discus- 
sion of  the  question ;  one  of  these  interests  is  that  of  the 
masses  of  the  people,  who  have  the  debt  to  pay,  and  the 
other  that  of  bondholders  and  bankers,  who  are  to  receive 
the  interest  and  the  principal  to  be  paid.  The  people  want 
to  be  relieved  from  the  burden  of  interest  and  debt,  in  the 
shortest  time  and  at  the  least  possible  expense,  whilst  the, 
holders  of  the  bonds  evidently  want  their  claims  perpetuated 
as  long,  and  to  obtain  as  much  as  possible  out  of  it. 

Is  it  not  the  positive  duty  of  Congress  to  legislate  for  the 
greatest  good  .of  the  greatest  number?  J  fear  they  are  con- 
sulting far  too  much  the  interests  of  the  small  number  of 
bondholders,  who  want  the  debt  perpetuated,  and  not  those 
of  the  masses,  who  have  the  burden  of  debt  to  bear. 

The  bankers  want  the  bonds,  coming  due,  refunded  into 
those  bearing  as  high  a  rate  of  interest  as  they  can  obtain, 

and  having  a  long  time  to  run,  on  which,  under  the  National 
2 


18  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

Banking  Act,  they  can  secure  90  per  cent,  in  bank  notes, 
which  are  just  as  valuable  to  them  as  the  money  they  invest 
in  the  bonds.  By  this  means  they  are  able  to  obtain  a 
double  interest  out  of  the  people  on  about  every  dollar  of 
the  debt  thus  refunded ;  one  on  the  bonds  they  buy,  and  the 
other  on  the  bank  currency  they  receive  from  the  Treasury, 
which  they  loan  to  the  people. 

Now,  I  ask  you  as  intelligent  men,  why  should  not  the 
Government  issue  its  currency  for  the  benefit  of  all  the 
people  in  the  form  of  Treasury  notes,  made  receivable  for 
all  forms  of  taxes,  duties  and  debts,  and  as  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son said,  bearing  or  not  bearing  interest,  as  the  case  may 
be  ;  and  which,  he  said,  constituted  an  ample  fund  for  every 
contingency,  that  may  arise.  These  notes  may  be  redeem- 
able in  coin  or  receivable  at  Post  Office  Savings  Banks, 
where  a  rate  of  interest  is  paid,  that  will  keep  them  at  par 
with  coin.  Why  not  use  this  currency  to  buy  gold  and  sil- 
ver bullion  and  coin  it,  and  with  this  coin,  and  with  the 
hundreds  of  millions  now  idle  in  the  Treasury,  pay  off  the 
bonds,  falling  due  as  fast  as  possible,  and  thus  stop  the  in- 
terest on  them,  and  relieve  the  people  from  the  debt  en- 
tirely ? 

Do  you  not  think,  that  United  States  Treasury  notes,  thus 
issued,  would  be  just  as  valuable  for  currency,  as  are  the  notes 
of  the  National  Banks  ? 

Cannot  the  Government  keep  its  notes  at  par  with  coin, 
as  easily  and  more  permanently  than  can  the  National 
Banks  ?  Cannot  the  Government,  by  the  taxing  power  it 
possesses,  command  nearly  all  the  gold  and  silver  bullion, 
and  does  it  not  have  the  absolute  control  of  the  coinage  of 
such  bullion,  and  by  these  means  will  it  not  be  able  to  re- 
deem its  notes  in  coin  with  greater  certainty,  than  the  banks 
can  their  notes  ? 

The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  on  page  15  of  his  last  annual 
report,  informs  us  "  that  the  amount  of  United  States  notes, 
presented  for  redemption  for  one  year  prior  to  Nov.  1,  1880, 
was  only  $706,658 ;  while  the  amount  of  coin  or  bullion  de~ 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  19 

posited  in  the  Treasury,  Assay  Office,  and  the  mints,  durmg 
the  same  period,  was  $71,396,535.67 ;  and  that  those  deposits 
of  coin  and  bullion  were  paid  for  in  United  States  notes 
and  silver  certificates."  From  these  facts  it  must  be  self- 
evident  to  all,  that  the  people  prefer  Treasury  notes  to  coin, 
and  that  there  is  a  demand  for  $101  of  Treasury  notes  to 
$1  of  coin. 

Do  not  these  facts  also  show,  that  the  people  prefer  the 
legal  tender  Government  Treasury  notes  to  either  gold  or 
silver  coin,  or  to  any  other  kind  of  currency  ? 

Secretary  Sherman,  on  page  M  of  his  last  annual  report, 
also  says: 

/  t/ 

"  United  States  notes  are  now  in  form,  security  and  con- 
venience, THE  BEST  CIRCULATING  MEDIUM  KNOWN." 

"  Ordinarily  the  superior  convenience  of  these  notes  will, 
as  at  present,  make  a  greater  demand  for  them  than  for 
coin." 

"  The  United  States  note,  to  the  extent  that  it  is  willingly 
taken  by  the  people,  and  can,  beyond  question,  be  main- 
tained at  par  in  coin,  is  the  least  burdensome  form  of  debt." 

Secretary  Sherman  tells  us  also,  that  with  the  notes  now 
in  circulation,  "  The  public  saves  over  seven  millions  of  an- 
nual interest,"  and  "  secures  a  safe  and  convenient  medium  of 
exchange,"  and  we  have  the  assurance,  that  "  a  sufficient  re- 
serve in  coin  will  be  retained  in  the  Treasury,  beyond  the 
temptation  of  diminution,  such  as  always  attends  reserves, 
held  by  banks." 

Now  I  ask  you,  gentlemen,  if  these  statements  of  Secre- 
tary Sherman,  who  is  regarded  as  one  of  the  ablest  and 
soundest  financiers  of  the  world,  are  true,  what  possible  ob- 
jection can  there  be  to  replace  the  present  notes  of  the 
National  banks  with  United  States  Treasury  notes,  as  was 
recommended  by  the  late  John  E.  Williams,  President  of 
the  Metropolitan  Bank  of  New  York  City  some  years  ago  ? 
If  the  people  prefer  these  notes  to  coin ;  if  they  are  "  the 
best  currency  ever  issued  ;"  if  they  "  save  interest  on  the 
public  debt ;"  if  they  are  "  readily  maintained  at  par  with 


20  COIN   AND   PAPER   CTJRKENCY. 

coin,"  why  not  have  all  our  paper  currency  in  United 
States  Treasury  notes,  instead  of  bank  notes  ?  There  is  not 
the  slightest  doubt  in  my  mind  but  that,  if  the  Government 
should  issue  its  Treasury  notes,  made  receivable  for  all 
forms  of  taxes,  duties  and  debts,  and  at  the  option  of  the 
Govnerment  made  redeemable  in  coin,  or  received  at  Post 
Office  Savings  Banks,  it  could  issue  an  amount  equal  to  the 
whole  $637,000,000  of  bonds  now  due,  and  the  people  would 
give-coin  or  an  equivalent  in  coin,  in  labor  or  in  any  property 
they  have  to  dispose  of,  for  every  dollar  of  such  notes  issued. 

While  members  of  Congress  are  spending  days  and  weeks, 
discussing  the  question,  as  to  whether  the  bankers  -will  buy 
3  or  3J  per  cent,  bonds  and  Treasury  notes  at  par,  the 
people  stand  ready  to  take  these  Treasury  notes  at  par,  even 
if  they  bear  no  interest  whatever. 

If  the  $345,000,000  of  bank  notes,  now  in  circulation, 
are  withdrawn,  and  Government  Treasury  notes  issued  to 
take  their  places,  and  these  Treasury  notes  used  in  cancelling 
the  bonds  referred  to,  over  $20,000,000  of  annual  interest 
could  be  stopped  at  once.  Or,  if  these  notes  were  used  to 
pay  for  labor  and  material  in  the  construction  of  public 
works,  they  would  complete  three  lines  of  double  track  rail- 
roads from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  and  build  fifty  first- 
class  ocean  steamers,  which  the  people  could  have  for  use 
at  the  bare  cost  of  running  expenses. 

Is  it  right  for  the  Government  to  donate  to  bankers  so 
much  money,  which,  if  given  to  the  people  in  payment  of 
public  improvements,  would  add  such  enormous  sums  to  our 
national  wealth,  or  if  used  to  cancel  the  bonds,  would  re- 
lieve the  people  from  such  a  burden  of  interest?  If  the 
paper  notes  in  circulation  were  all  in  Treasury  notes,  and 
these  notes  were- used  as  here  directed,  the  industries  of  the 
country  would  be  so  stimulated,  that  the  annual  revenues 
of  the  Government  would  provide  funds  for  cancelling  the 
public  debt  as  fast,  as  it  becomes  due,  as  is  now  readily 
being  done  by  France,  under  her  admirable  system  of  pub- 
lic works. 


COIN  AND  PATER  CURRENCY.  21 

Herewith  I  enclose  a  printed  slip,  which,  contains  some 
very  important  facts  and  figures,  embodying  my  views  in 
reference  to  the  funding  and  payment  of  the  National  debt. 
I  will  thank  you  most  sincerely  if  you  will  give  them  your 
most  careful  consideration.  The  truths  they  contain  can  be 
verified  from  the  records  of  the  Treasury  Department,  and 
by  any  skilled  accountant. 

You  will  discover,  by  verifying  these  figures,  that  by  sub- 
stituting Treasury  notes  and  using  the  idle  coin  in  the 
Treasury  and  the  $100,000,000  of  annual  surplus  revenues 
of  the  Government,  that  the  public  debt  can  all  be  canceUed 
in  about  eight  years  at  a  saving  to  the  people  of  ,$894,- 
000,000  over  the  sum  required,  if  this  portion  of  the  debt 
is  refunded  into  twenty-year  bonds,  as  has  been  proposed. 

I  believe  that,  if  the  policy  here  indicated  is  adopted  by 
Congress,  that  its  members  will  be  entitled  to  the  gratitude 
of  the  whole  country,  and  by  relieving  them  from  the 
burden  of  a  National  debt,  and  greatly  promoting  the  Na- 
tional industries,  they  will  make  this  the  most  prosperous 
nation  on  the  face  of  the  globe. 

One  of  the  great  benefits  to  be  derived  from  the  use  of 
United  States  Treasury  notes  in  place  of  bank  notes,  will  be 
that  it  will  give  the  people  a  volume  of  currency,  which  will  be 
uniform,  and  which  will  not  be  subject  to  inflation  and  con- 
traction, as  bank  currency  has  always  been.  It  is  a  principle 
recognized  by  all  writers  on  political  economy,  that  other 
things  being  equal,  the  volume  of  currency  determines  the 
prices  of  all  property,  and  that,  where  that  volume  is  inflated 
or  contracted,  prices  are  increased  and  diminished  in  a  like 
ratio.  Under  the  present  National  Banking  Act,  the  bank- 
ers have  the  power  to  inflate  the  currency  to  within  about 
10  per  cent,  of  the  entire  bonded  debt  or  to  $1,600,000,000, 
and  then  contract  it  as  much  as  they  choose.  You  can 
imagine  how  disastrously  such  expansion  and  contraction 
must  work  upon  the  business  of  the  country,  and  what  enor- 
mous profits  the  bankers,  who  have  control  of  the  volume 
of  currency,  are  able  to  realize  by  using  the  power  the 


22  COIN   AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

• 

people  thus  place  in  their  hands.  With  all  our  paper  cur- 
rency in  United  States  notes,  no  such  inflation  and  contraction 
could  possibly  take  place.  No  bill,  affecting  the  volume  of 
currency,  could  be  passed,  except  after  the  most  careful  con- 
sideration and  thorough  discussion  by  the  wisest  men  in  the 
National  councils,  and  by  the  press  and  people  of  the  entire 
country.  "While  under  the  present  National  banking  system, 
a  few  bank  presidents,  in  some  back  parlor,  can  inflate  or 
contract  the  currency  to  the  extent  of  hundreds  of  millions  of 
dollars,  without  the  people  knowing  anything  about  it,  until 
many  of  them  find  themselves  on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy. 

If  our  paper  currency  is  all  in  Treasury  notes,  the  volume 
can  be  so  regulated  by  Congress  as  to  bear  a  uniform  rela- 
tion to  the  wealth  of  the  nation,  and  be  increased^/*  capita 
as  the  population  and  business  of  the  country  increase,  and 
the  contraction  of  such  volume  be  forever  prevented,  and 
the  purchasing  power  of  money  be  made  as  uniform  as  the 
measuring  power  of  the  yardstick  or  pound  weight. 

Such  a  currency  would,  not  only  give  the  people  uniform 
prices,  but  unparalleled  prosperity  in  all  departments  of 
business.  It  would  lessen  crime,  promote  virtue  and  make 
us  a  free,  happy  and  intelligent  people. 

Let  me  entreat  of  you,  gentlemen,  to  do  one  thing  for  the 
people,  before  you  adjourn,  if  nothing  more:  ATTACH  A 
CLAUSE  TO  THE  REFUNDING  BILL,  MAKING  IT  OBLIGATORY  UPON 
THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE  TREASURY  TO  ISSUE  UNITED  STATES 
TREASURY  NOTES  TO  TAKE  THE  PLACE  OF  THE  NOTES  OF  ANY 
NATIONAL  BANK,  THAT  MAY  RETIRE  ITS  CIRCULATION. 

Every  serious  contraction  of  the  currency  works  disas- 
trously to  business,  and,  if  a  3  per  cent,  refunding  bill  is 
passed,  the  banks,  many  of  them,  are  threatening  to  retire 
their  circulation.  A  clause  of  this  kind,  would  obviate  any 
difficulties,  that  might  arise  from  such  a  course,  and  would 
place  the  business  interests  of  the  country  beyond  the  power 
of  banks  to  materially  disturb  them. 

Yours  with  great  respect, 

PETER  COOPER. 


COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY.  23 

\ 

ARTICLE  IN  THE  NEW  YORK  TRIBUNE,  NOVEMBER  21,  1874. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Tribune. 

SIR: — I  have  read  the  able  and  most  interesting  letter, 
lately  published  in  The  Evening  Post  by  my  honored  and 
respected  friend,  the  Hon.  Charles  O'Conor.  That  letter 
brought  to  my  recollection  a  conversation,  held  with  a  dis- 
tinguished lawyer  of  this  city,  some  forty  years  ago.  In 
that  conversation  the  counsellor  was  exceedingly  severe  on 
Gen.  Jackson's  war  on  the  United  States  Bank — an  institu- 
tion, that  he  regarded  as  an  indispensable  means  to  promote 
the  general  welfare  of  the  nation.  I  saw,  that  the  counsellor 
had  entirely  overlooked  the  frightful  evils,  brought  on  the 
country  by  the  paper  money,  issued  by  that  bank  during 
the  first  four  years  of  its  operations,  when  it  was  found  to 
have  issued  $40,000,000  of  paper  money,  and  had  in  its 
vaults  only  $300,000  in  gold  to  redeem  it.  When  this  fact 
became  known  the  President  had  to  flee  for  his  life.  Lang- 
don  Sheves,  a  distinguished  gentleman  from  Charleston, 
was  invited  to  take  his  place  as  President  of  the  bank.  A 
council  was  then  held  for  five  days,  when  it  was  determined 
to  curtail  their  accommodations  20  per  cent,  per  month,  by 
which  means  they  barely  saved  the  bank,  and  literally 
ruined  all,  who  were  in  debt  by  the  shrinkage  of  all  values 
throughout  the  country  to  less  than  one-half  the  amount, 
that  property  had  sold  for  under  the  inflation  of  prices, 
caused  by  the  enormous  amount  of  paper  promises  to  pay 
gold,  that  had  been  in  circulation. 

This  should  be  sufficient  to  show  the  ruinous  policy 
of  allowing  anything  to  be  used  as  a  money  measure  of 
the  value  of  property  or  labor,  that  has  not  in  it  the  evi- 
dence in  real  value  of  gold  actually  dug,  or  a  mortgage 
on  the  whole  property  of  the  country  to  secure  its  final 
payment. 

After  the  counsellor  had  completed  his  severe  censures  on 
the  policy  of  Gen.  Jackson,  I  ventured  to  say,  that  I  would, 
if  he  had  no  objection,  give  my  opinion  of  what  would  be  a 


24  COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

true  financial  policy  for  a  new  nation.  I  then  said,  that  I 
would  suppose  a  case  to  illustrate  and  bring  near  home  what 
appeared  to  me  a  true  financial  policy,  that  a  nation  un- 
fettered by  debt  should  adopt. 

In  order  to  find  out  where  we  have  drifted,  I  will  now 
ask  you  to  go  with  me  through  the  rise,  progress,  and  de- 
velopment of  two  nations.  To  do  this  I  will  ask  you  to 
suppose,  that  two  separate,  independent,  intelligent  colonies 
had  arrived,  one  on  this  island  and  one  on  the  Jersey  shore, 
with  only  their  implements,  intending  to  live  on  what  they 
could  find  or  get  out  of  the  ground  by  their  labor.  Suppose 
the  river  was  the  dividing  line  between  them,  such  a  people 
would  soon  find,  that  the  exchange  of  commodities  in  kind, 
one  with  another,  was  attended  with  a  great  expense  of 
time  and  labor.  An  intelligent  people  would  look  for  some 
means  of  relief  from  the  labor  of  carrying  heavy  materials 
to  places,  where  they  were  not  wanted  for  immediate  use, 
in  order  to  be  exchanged  or  bartered  in  kind  for  things  in- 
dispensable to  their  wants. 

If  an  intelligent  community  should  find  gold  and  silver, 
that  could  be  obtained  with  great  labor,  they  would  see  that 
gold  and  silver  were  durable,  malleable,  and  easily  put  in 
forms,  convenient  for  a  circulating  medium.  In.  order  to 
make  it  a  just  means  to  measure  all  forms  of  labor,  such  a 
community  would  employ  one  man  to  dig  gold  and  silver, 
and  another  to  dig  corn  and  potatoes ;  and  when  the  man 
had  put  his  silver  and  gold  in  convenient  forms  f or'currency, 
they  would  see  the  great  advantage  they  would  obtain  by 
exchanging  the  day's  labor  of  gold  and  silver  for  the  day's 
labor  of  corn  and  potatoes,  and  all  tother  aricles,  that  em- 
bodied labor. 

This  form  of  currency  would  circulate  from  hand  to  hand, 
carrying  with  it  the  evidence  of  labor  actually  performed. 
The  whole  community  would  be  delighted  with  their  im- 
provement, as  the  wear  and  tear  of  such  a  currency  would 
be  so  small  and  the  saving  in  labor  so  great.  Such  a  com- 
munity would  naturally  grow  and  prosper,  until  their  number 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY.  25 

would  so  increase,  as  to  make  it  necessary  to  send  their  gold 
and  silver  to  distant  places  at  great  hazard  and  expense. 
An  intelligent  community,  instead  of  sending  gold  to  New 
Orleans  to  buy  sugar,  would  naturally  establish  a  safe  place 
of  deposit  for  gold  here,  and  then  send  an  order  to  New 
Orleans,  that  would  cause  the  gold  to  be  delivered  to  any 
one  holding  that  order.  The  order  would  be  more  valuable 
to  the  man  in  New  Orleans,  who  wanted  something  from 
New  York,  than  the  gold  itself ;  such  an  order  as  this  would 
save  the  expense  and  risk  of  sending  the  gold  in  both  di- 
rections. 

As  it  happened  in  olden  times,  when  it  is  said  that 
"  the  sons  of  God  "  (or  the  sons  of  good)  "  came  together," 
that  "  Satan "  (in  the  form  of  selfishness)  "  came  also 
among  them,"  so  it  has  unfortunately  come  to  pass  in  our 
country ;  these  men  were  not  satisfied  with  the  advantages, 
gained  by  drawing  bills  on  gold  deposited,  instead  of  send- 
ing gold  backward  and  forward  from  one  distant  place  to 
another: 

These  artful,  selfish  persons,  whose  proper-  business  it  was 
to  earn  their  living  by  digging  gold,  and  putting  it  into  forms 
convenient  for  currency,  'found  that  they  were  working  just 
as  hard  as  the  men,  who  were  digging  corn  and  potatoes. 
These  men  saw  promises  to  pay  gold  on  demand,  passing 
freely  from  one  hand  to  another.  The  cunning  man,  whose 
business  it  was  to  dig  gold,  says  to  his  weak-minded  neigh- 
bor :  "  You  see,  that  those  paper  promises  are  just  as  good 
as  gold,  as  the  people  buy  everything  they  want  with  them ; 
if  you  will  join  with  me,  we  will  get  a  charter,  that  will  en- 
able us  to  get  our  corn  and  potatoes  with  much  less  hard 
labor."  They  at  once  apply  for  a  charter  for  a  bank.  If 
objections  should  be  made  to  giving  them  one,  such  objec- 
tions are  quieted  by  giving  those,  who  object  an  interest  in 
the  stock. 

In  this  way  pictures,  called  money,  encouraged  by  legis- 
lative acts,  with  all  the  other  forms  of  special,  partial,  and 
class  legislation,  have  filled  the  mind  of  the  people  with  false 


26  COm  AND   PAPEE  CUEEENCY. 

hopes  of  living  without  labor,  and  have  thus  made  paper 
money  the  grand  demoralizer  of  the  nation.* 

I  wish  you  to  keep  the  supposition  in  view  of  two  inde- 
pendent Governments,  only  divided  by  a  river.  Bear  in 
mind,  that  one  of  these  Governments  continued  the  use  of 
gold  and  silver,  and  drafts  on  the  deposits  of  gold,  while 
the  Government  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river  chartered 
banks,  with  the  power  to  pour  paper  money,  promising  to  pay 
gold  on  demand,  into  their  circulating  medium.  The  nat- 
ural consequence  of  pouring  paper  money  into  our  circula- 
tion would  be  to  raise  the  prices  of  all  forms  of  property 
and  labor  under  the  Government,  that  issued  paper  money. 

The  prices  of  everything,  having  been  raised  on  one  side 
of  the  river,  the  people  would  naturally  go  to  the  cheap  la- 
bor Government  on  the  other  side  of  the  river  to  buy  what 
they  required.  This  trade  would  go  on  as  long  as  their 
banks  continued  to  pay  specie  on  demand.  It  would  not  be 
long  before  the  people,  that  inflated  their  currency  with  paper 
money,  would  find,  that  their  trade  was  going  over  to  the 
Government,  that  continued  to  measure  all  their  property 
and  labor  by  a  gold  standard.  That  Government  would 
undersell  the  Government,  that  had  raised  the  prices  of  all 
property  by  their  use  of  paper  money.  The  people  in  the 
Government  of  inflated  currency  would  soon  ask  for  a  tariff 
to  protect  them  against  the  cheap  labor  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  river,  and  in  proportion  as  their  prices  of  all  labor 
and  property  increased  in  cost,  they  would  find  an  excuse  to 
ask  for  more  banks  and  paper  money,  as  we  have  done.  In 
the  course  of  time  men  would  go  to  the  banks  and  demand 
gold  in  large  quantity,  when  it  would  be  found,  that  the 
banks  had  promised  to  pay  gold  on  demand,  when  it  was 
entirely  out  of  their  power. 

*  Mr.  Yonge,  in  his  "  History  of  Banking,"  says,  that  one  sum  of  $30,- 
000  started  three  banks  in  one  day.  The  money  was  rolled  into  their 
banks,  until  they  could  swear,  that  they  had  $30,000  in  bank,  and  then 
rolled  out  and  sent  to  start  another  bank,  and  so  on,  until  three  banks 
were  started  in  one  day. 


COIN  AND   PAPEE  CUEEENCY.  27 

The  men,  who  ought  to  have  been  digging  gold,  had  got 
their  corn  and  potatoes  for  paper  promises  without  work, 
and  as  paper  money  was  easily  made,  they  were  enabled  to 
b%uy  finer  houses,  more  costly  furniture,  and  live  more  ex- 
pensively, and  thereby  tempt  their  neighbors  to  borrow  these 
paper  promises  to  pay  gold,  and  give  mortgages  on  their 
property,  in  order  to  live  in  the  same  style  and  course  of  ex- 
travagant expenditures  as  their  neighbor  the  banker. 

Finally,  peremptory  demands  would  be  made  for  gold,  as 
they  were  on  the  old  United  States  Bank,  when  it  had  is- 
sued $40,000,000  in  paper,  having  but  $300,000  in  gold  to 
redeem  it.  A  paper  currency,  when  made  a  mortgage  on 
the  whole  property  of  a  new  country,  should  never  be  al- 
lowed to  exceed  the  amount  of  gold  and  silver,  that  would 
circulate,  if  there  was  no  such  thing  as  paper  money  allowed, 
unless  it  becomes  absolutely  necessary  to  increase  it  to  save 
a  nation's  life. 

In  the  course  of  my  argument  with  the  counsellor,  I  en- 
deavored to  show  the  terrible  power,  that  the  old  and  the 
new  United  States  Bank,  with  its  branches,  had  exerted  in 
every  State.  I  believe  it  can  be  shown,  that  such  a  bank, 
with  its  branches  in  all  the  States,  would  spread  a  net  of 
temptations  through  the  community,  too  great  for  poor 
human  nature  to  bear.  It  would  do  this  even  with  a  good 
man  in  the  control  of  the  main  bank.  The  good  man  would 
see,  that  as  the  banks  increased  their  loans,  prices  would  rise, 
and  people  increase  their  expenses  of  living,  until  the  good 
president  would  feel  it  his  duty  to  contract  their  accommo- 
dations, in  order  to  check  their  extravagance.  Such  a  pres- 
ident would  be  tempted  to  say  to  himself,  "  I  certainly  have 
a  right  to  buy  or  sell  with  the  property,  that  I  had  before  I 
was  made  president  of  the  bank."  He  therefore  sells  out 
all  he  wishes  at  the  high  prices,  and  tells  his  friends  they 
had  better  sell,  as  they  will  be  able  to  buy  everything  cheap, 
as  soon  as  the  bank  withholds  the  accommodations,  on  which 
their  customers  depend. 

The  same  temptation  to  make  a  fortune  out  of  the  ruin  of 


28  COIN  AKD   PAPEE  CUEEENCY. 

their  customers  was  presented  to  the  president  of  every  branch 
bank  in  every  State.  As  soon  as  an  order  was  received  from 
the  mother  bank,  directing  branch  banks  to  curtail  bank 
discounts,  the  presidents  of  all  the  branch  banks  would  then 
be  tempted  to  sell  all  they  could  before  commencing  to  re- 
fuse discounts,  in  compliance  with  the  order" of  the  mother 
bank ;  as  they  would  be  sure  that  all  property  would  fall  in 
proportion  to  the  extent  of  the  contraction  of  the  discounts, 
on  which  the  general  business  was  dependent.  As  soon  as 
it  was  believed,  that  property  had  fallen  to  the  lowest  point, 
all  the  presidents  and  the  directors  of  the  mother  bank  and 
its  branches  would,  not  only  buy  property  with  the  means 
they  had  before  they  were  made  presidents,  but  those  of 
them,  who  were  very  anxious  to  make  a  fortune  in  a  short 
time,  would  use  their  opportunity  in  buying  up  property  on 
credit,  at  the  ruinous  rates,  at  which  it  would  have  to  be 
sold  to  settle  the  claims,  held  by  the  bank.  The  presidents 
and  their  friends  would  feel  perfectly  safe  in  buying  with 
money  and  credit,  knowing  as  they  would,  that  property 
would  again  rise  rapidly  as  soon  as  bank  discounts  could  be 
freely  obtained. 

I  think  you  will  agree  with  me  in  opinion,  that  Gen. 
Jackson  was  right  in  doing  all,  that  was  possible  to  put  an 
end  to  an  institution,  that  was  building  up  a  moneyed  aris- 
tocracy on  the  ruin  of  the  best  and  most  enterprising  men 
of  the  nation. 

This  conversation  ended  as  we  alighted  from  the  cars, 
when  the  counsellor  caught  me  by  the  arm  and  said,  that  he 
had  never  seen  the  subject  in  that  light  before.  He  then 
agreed  with  me,  that  all  efforts  to  get  something  for  nothing 
are  a  mistake,  if  not  a  species  of  fraud. 

I  have,  with  much  hesitation,  ventured  to  address  you 
this  letter,  as  my  humble  effort  to  call  and  fix  the  attention 
of  the  American  people  on  the  causes,  that  have  led  to  the 
widespread  political  corruption,  that  now  threatens  with  de- 
struction all  that  we  hold  dear  as  a  nation.  I  know  you  will 
agree  with  me  as  to  the  necessity  of  finding  out  the  causes 


COIN   AND  PAPER  CUEEENCY.  29 

of  the  evils  we  deplore,  before  we  can  hope  for  the  relief, 
that  all  should  desire. 

The  great  corrupting  sin  of  our  country  and  the  world 
has  always  been  an  eager  effort  to  get  the  property  of  others, 
without  giving  an  equivalent  in  any  form  of  useful  labor. 
To  accomplish  this  purpose,  our  fathers  commenced  our  his- 
tory by  getting  the  Indians'  land  without  giving  them  any- 
thing of  real  value,  and  in  the  main  drove  them  from  their 
homes  by  force.  .  .  . 

The  fact  that  our  General  Government  failed  to  prevent 
the  individual  States  from  issuing  what  were  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  "  bills  of  credit,"  in  the  shape  of  pictures  called 
money,  and  a  still  further  inflation  of  the  currency  became 
necessary  to  save  the  nation.  Inflation  and  war  have  raised 
the  prices  of  all  labor  and  property,  and  have  made  all  reg- 
ular business  a  game  of  chance,  instead  of  a  sure  reward  of 
honest  labor. 

"We  may  well  say  with  the  poet : 

"  'Tis  greatly  wise  to  talk  with  our  past  hours, 
And  ask  them  what  report  they  bore, 
And  how  they  might  have  borne  more  welcome  news." 

All  can  now  see,  how  wise  it  would  have  been  for  the 
United  States  Government  to  have  insisted  on  its  right  and 
duty  to  put  its  stamp  on  everything  in  the  shape  of  gold, 
silver,  copper,  nickel,  or  paper,  that  has  ever  been  allowed 
to  circulate  as  money.  Could  this  have  been  done,  it  would 
have  borne  for  us  more  welcome  news,  than  the  present  state 
of  our  currency  and  country  now  presents. 

I  have  endeavored  to  show  the  train  of  evils,  that  have 
been  entailed  on  our  country  by  the  failure  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  coin  money  and  control  all  that  has  ever  been 
allowed  to  circulate  as  money,  as  everything,  so  allowed  to 
circulate  as  money,  should  have  been  based  on  a  gold  value, 
and  made  as  secure  as  a  good  bond  and  mortgage  on  all  the 
property  of  the  country  could  make  it.  I  will  now  attempt 
to  show,  that  paper  money  has  enriched  the  wealth  of  the 


30  COIN   AND   PAPER  CURRENCY. 

country,  while  at  the  same  time  it  has  demoralized  the  peo- 
ple by  having  introduced  a  false  balance  in  trade. 

This  seeming  advantage  will  continue  as  long  as  we  are 
able  to  induce  the  people  of  cheap  labor  countries  to  con- 
tinue to  bring  us  their  persons,  and  give  us  their  gold  in 
exchange  for  our  lots,  our  land,  and  our  labor  at  the  highest 
valuation,  that  we  have  set  on  them.  The  lots  and  land 
they  have  bought  at  our  high  prices  and  now  occupy,  have 
more  than  doubled  the  value  of  all  the  real  estate  of  our 
country  ;  and  this  has  enabled  our  people  to  grow  rich  more 
rapidly  and  live  more  expensively,  than  any  other  people  in 
the  world.  In  proof  of  the  above,  I  will  state,  that  since  I 
have  lived  in  the  upper  part  of  the  city,  I  had  the  offer  of 
eighteen  acres  of  land,  bounded  by  the  Fifth  Avenue, 
Twenty-first  Street,  and  the  Eighth  Avenue,  for  eleven  thou- 
sand dollars — land  that  would  have  sold  two  years  ago  for 
some  fifteen  millions  of  dollars.  Unless  our  Government 
act  wisely  in  the  future,  our  fall  may  be  as  rapid  as  our  rise 
has  been  great.  The  true  object  of  all  good  government 
should  be  to  find  out  and  do  those  things  for  a  people,  which 
the  people,  in  their  individual  capacity,  cannot  do  for  them- 
selves. • 

The  unfortunately  vacillating  policy,  adopted  by  the  Gov- 
ernment in  relation  to  the  money  of  the  country,  in  the 
course  of  efforts  to  arrive  at  specie  payments,  has  already 
shrunk  the  value  of  all  property  and  labor  to  an  amount 
equal  to  all  the  money,  spent  in  the  war  of  the  Rebellion. 
There  is  nothing,  that  will  revive  the  fallen  prosperity  of 
our  country  and  enable  people  to  pay  their  city,  town,  and 
National  debts  but  a  wisely  and  well-arranged  revenue  tariff. 
It  is  the  only  means,  that  will  enable  us  to  pay  the  nation's 
debts.  This  was  made  clear  by  events,  that  took  place  in 
our  own  country  between  the  year  1834  and  1842,  when  our 
tariff,  which  had  ju&t  paid  off  our  old  National  debt,  was  re- 
pealed. By  this  repeal  our  mills  were  stopped,  as  they  now 
are ;  our  furnaces  closed ;  lands  fell  to  half  price ;  the 
Sheriff  was  at  work ;  States  repudiated  their  debts ;  the 


COIN   AKD   PAPEE  CUEEENCY.  31 

United  States  were  unable  to  borrow  money  at  home  or 
abroad,  and  bankrupt  laws  were  passed  by  Congress.  The 
tariff  system  was  again  tried  in  1842,  and  in  less  than  five 
years  the  production  of  our  country,  in  iron  alone,  rose  from 
two  thousand  to  eight  thousand  tons;  prosperity  became 
universal  and  the  public  revenues  greater  than  ever.  In 
1846  the  Free  Trade  policy  was  again  tried  by  repealing  the 
tariff,  and  notwithstanding  the  enormous  amount  of  gold, 
found  in  California,  money  was  as  high  as  ever ;  iron  came 
in  and  gold  went  out.  In  1857  the  culmination  was  reached, 
and  a  crisis  of  ruin  came  on,  when  the  Treasury  was  nearly 
bankrupt.  In  three  years  immigration  fell  below  the  num- 
ber, that  arrived  twenty-eight  years  before. 

The  results  of  the  two  systems  will  be  clearly  seen  by  fol- 
lowing the  tariffs  of  1810,  1828,  and  1861,  when  labor  was 
well  paid,  money  plenty,  and  emigration  great.  We  cannot 
too  carefully  contrast  the  prosperity,  that  has  uniformly  fol- 
lowed the  tariff  policy  of  our  country,  in  comparison  with 
the  frightful  consequences  of  an  approach  to  Free  Trade, 
as  they  appeared  in  1817,  1834,  and  1857,  when  labor  was 
ill  paid,  money  scarce,  immigration  declining,  and  bankrupts 
were  numbered  by  thousands.  If  every  step  toward  Free 
Trade  bears  such  fruit,  although  it  may  look  as  beautiful  as 
the  whited  sepulchre  of  old,  if  it  is  intended  to  operate  in 
connection  with  our  inflated  paper-circulating  medium,  it 
should  be  dreaded  as  we  would  dread  the  presence  of  a  pes- 
tilence. 

In  Mr.  O'Conor's  letter  he  recommends,  that  our  Govern- 
ment should  adopt,  not  only  Free  Trade,  but  direct  taxation, 
as  the  policy  of  our  country.  The  old  confederacy  of  thir- 
teen States  attempted  to  maintain  their  Government  by 
direct  taxation  and  failed.  That  failure  was  due  to  the  fact, 
that  the  several  States  then  neglected  to  provide  their  quota 
of  taxation  for  the  General  Government.  But  the  presence 
of  a  multitude  of  tax-collectors,  and  the  personal  contact  of 
each  with  the  farmer  and  mechanic,  as  claimant  of  dues  to 
a  remote  interest,  like  that  of  the  General  Government,  has 


32  '     COIN   AND   PAPEE   CTJEEENCY. 

always  been  regarded  as  a  great  nuisance  by  the  common 
people,  and  has  made  the  "  tax-gatherer  "  in  all  ages  a  dread- 
ed visitor.  A  good  reason  why  a  well-arranged  revenue 
tariff  of  specific  duties,  raised  from  the  smallest  number  of 
articles,  that  will  produce  the  required  amount,  is  more  safe 
than  direct  taxation  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact,  that  Dr. 
Franklin  says :  "  The  American  people,  under  the  old  Co- 
lonial Government,  were  so  immoderately  fond  of  the  manu- 
factures and  superfluities  of  foreign  countries,  that  they 
could  not  be  restrained  from  purchasing  them." 

When  the  several  States  and  the  General  Government  of 
our  country  shall  abolish  all  unwise  and  unnecessary  laws, 
and  cause  all  that  remain  to  be  so  plain,  clear  and  positive, 
that  no  man  could  long  hold  office  under  them  without  a 
faithful  performance  of  the  duties,  enjoined  by  the  law ; 
when  we,  the  people,  determine,  that  we  shall  have  honesty, 
intelligence  and  integrity  in  all  places  of  public  trust,  and 
adopt  a  civil  service  to  secure  it ;  when  a  faithful  discharge 
of  duties,  useful  to  the  public,  shall  secure  a  continuance  in 
place  and  a  suitable  pension,  when  worn  out  in  the  public 
service ;  when  these  privileges  are  secured  to  the  people,  we 
may  then  hope  for  a  Government,  that  all  can  honor,  re- 
spect and  obey ;  it  will  then  be  a  Government  in  harmony 
with  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution,  under 
which  we  live. 

Lastly,  let  me  say,  that  there  can  be  no  proper  guarantee 
for  the  safety  or  perpetuity  of  our  free  institutions,  till 
honesty  and  capacity  shall  be  considered  higher  claims  to 
office,  than  party  fealty  and  services ;  and  when  the  officers 
and  representatives  of  our  General  and  State  Governments 
shall  have  no  other  object  in  administering  their  respective 
functions  than  "  to  establish  justice  and  promote  the  general 
welfare  "  of  the  nation. 

PETER  COOPER. 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  33 

A  LETTER  ON  THE  CURRENCY. 

NEW  YORK,  July  12,  1875. 

To  ike  Editors  and  Legislators  of  my  native    City  and 
Country : 

An  inextinguishable  desire  to  do  what  I  can,  in  this  the 
eighty-fifth  year  of  my  age,  impels  me  to  call  and  fix  the 
attention  of  the  American  people  on  the  appalling  causes, 
that  have  so  effectually  paralyzed  the  varied  industries  of 
our  country.  This  destructive  cause  has  already  shrunk  the 
value  of  property  in  less  than  three  years  to  a  condition, 
where  real  estate  cannot  be  sold,  or  mortgages  obtained  on 
it  for  more  than  one-half  the  amount  it  would  have  brought 
three  years  ago. 

There  is  nothing,  that  can  be  more  important  than  to  find 
out  and  remove  a  cause,  that  is  bringing  bankruptcy  and 
ruin  on  millions  of  the  most  industrious  and  enterprising 
men  of  the  American  people.  The  national  policy,  that 
has  brought  this  frightful  calamity  to  our  country,  should 
receive  the  most  thorough  investigation  and  the  most  de- 
cided action  of  our  Government. 

I  propose  to  show  the  true  public  policy,  that  underlies 
this  whole  question,  and  to  indicate  what  appears  to  me,  as 
the  principles  and  the  just  methods,  that  ought  to  actuate 
the  people,  in  their  exercise  of  power  through  the  Govern- 
ment, and  the  remedies,  which  that  Government  ought  to 
devise.  For  it  must  ever  be  borne  in  mind,  that  the  Gov- 
ernment and  its  policy  in  this  country,  is  just  what  we,  the 
people,  make  it.  It  is  our  duty,  therefore,  at  all  times  and 
in  every  way,  to  enlighten  and  exhort  the  people,  and  trust 
to  such  appeals,  rather  than  any  immediate  criticism  or  di- 
rect appeal  to  the  Government  itself. 

The  whole  question  of  the  currency  and  money  arises 
from  the  necessity  of  trade,  or  exchanges  among  men  in  the 
products  of  their  industry,  and  the  causes  and  methods,  that 
make  these  exchanges  fair,  just,  and  beneficial  to  all  con- 
cerned, or  a  means  of  tyranny  and  injustice,  and  an  occa- 
3 


34          COIN  AND  PAPEE  CURRENCY. 

sion  for  the  exercise  of  greed  and  selfishness.  "  A  false 
balance  is  an  abomination  to  the  Lord,  but  a  just  weight  is 
His  delight."  This  proverb  contains  the  secret  of  all  un- 
fairness in  the  dealings  between  man  and  man.  Justice  and 
truth  are  at  the  bottom  of  all  fair  exchanges,  that  are  bene- 
ficial to  both  parties  ;  but  false  balances  and  unjust  weights 
are  the  means,  by  which  the  strong  and  the  insincere  oppress 
or  deceive  their  fellow  men. 

Let  us  then  trace,  in  some  simple  way,  this  necessity  of 
exchange  among  men,  and  the  process  by  which  injustice 
first  creeps  in,  and  the  best  method  of  keeping  the  true  bal- 
ance and  the  "  just  weight,"  in  the  exchange  of  one  equiva- 
lent for  another. 

Suppose  a  community  or  race  of  men  to  have  passed  that 
point  in  their  progress,  when  simple  barter  is  any  longer  the 
sufficient  means  of  exchange,  when  some  easier  and  more 
rapid  method  must  be  devised.  The  first  thing  selected  for 
this  purpose,  is  a  concentrated  and  valuable  form  of  labor, 
the  most  portable,  durable,  and  susceptible  of  carrying  on 
its  very  face,  the  record  and  sign  of  its  value.  Such  is  gold 
and  silver  money.  Its  value  is  two-fold  ;  it  is  both  intrinsic 
and  representative.  But  it  is  its  representative  value,  that 
makes  it  money,  or  a  conventional  sign  and  record  of  ex- 
changes. So  far  as  its  intrinsic  value  is  concerned,  the  ex- 
change of  a  piece  of  gold  for  anything  else,  is  simple  bar- 
ter. But  it  holds  the  "  balance  "  even,  and  it  gives  a  just 
weight  for  whatever  is  exchanged  for  it,  because,  it  has  cost 
labor  to  produce  it. 

But  there  comes  a  time,  in  the  complex  and  numerous  ex- 
changes, that  take  place  between  men  in  a  higher  state  of 
civilization,  when  even  the  barter  of  gold  and  silver  for 
other  products,  concentrated  and  portable  as  is  their  intrinsic 
value,  becomes  too  cumbrous  a  method  and  too  slow  to  ef- 
fect these  exchanges  fast  enough,  and  to  keep  the  record  of 
them  in  the  most  convenient  shape.  For  this  purpose  the 
intrinsic  value  of  the  means  of  exchange  is  superseded  en- 
tirely by  the  representative.  The  record  is  taken  for  a  time, 


COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  35 

for  the  transaction  itself,  which,  however,  is  assumed  will 
take  place  infallibly ;  and  in  order  to  secure  a  real  result  of 
the  exchange  of  values,  which  at  first,  are  the  subject  of  prom- 
ise and  record  merely,  there  must  be  some  real  or  assumed 
ability  on  the  part  of  the  one,  who  makes  the  promise,  that 
he  can  and  will  make  that  promise  good.  This  is  the  origin 
of  paper  money.  The  'value  of  this  paper  money,  although 
not  intrinsic,  as  is  that  of  gold  and  silver,  yet  is  no  less  real, 
provided,  the  exchange  of  values  it  is  used  to  record,  can  in 
any  way  be  made  certain  •  it  must  hold  an  "  even  balance" 
and  be  sure  to  give  a  "just  weight "  in  the  end.  But  here  is 
the  point  where  deceit  and  injustice  may  creep  in.  The 
paper  money  is  always  representative  of  value,  and  a  mere 
sign  of  a  real  exchange  of  values  to  take  place  at  some  fu- 
ture time.  It  may  hence  be  falsified  or  trusted  blindly,  and 
on  insufficient  grounds.  The  selfishness  and  greed  of  men, 
or  even  their  groundless  hopes  and  miscalculations  may  give  a 
temporary  value  to  this  promise  to  pay,  which  it  cannot  sus- 
tain. This  is  the  secret  of  panics,  revulsions  in  business  and 
prostration  of  credits.  The  lie  comes  to  the  surface  sooner 
or  later,  and  the  credulous  find  themselves  in  the  snare. 

This  liability  increases  in  proportion  to  the  want  of  integ- 
rity and  commercial  intelligence  in  individuals  and  commun- 
ities, where  such  methods  of  exchange  take  place.  Individ- 
uals are  less  to  be  trusted  with  such  a  vast  interest,  as  the 
power  of  making  paper  money,  than  are  corporate  bodies  of 
men ;  and  these  in  turn,  are  less  to  be  trusted  than  well  or- 
ganized governments.  Governments  themselves  differ  very 
much  in  this  respect,  in  proportion  as  they  are  responsible 
to  the  people  and  easily  held  in  check,  or  rectified  by  the  de- 
mands of  public  interest.  Hence,  a  true  republican  govern- 
ment is  the  safest  agency  in  the  world,  'to  entrust  with  the 
power  of  making  paper  money. 

A  semi-barbarous  government,  like  the  Turkish,  will  from 
time  to  time,  even  call  in  all  the  coin  of  the  country,  and 
reissue  it  again  in  a  depreciated  condition  and  value.  So, 
paper  money  is  subject  to  great  fluctuations  in  value,  if  there 


36  COIN  AND  PAPER  CTTRKENCY. 

be  any  uncertainty  in  the  real  and  permanent  integrity  of 
the  power,  that  issues  the  paper,  or  a  capricious  use  of  its 
authority  in  determining  its  standard  of  value. 

Experience  has  shown,  that  individuals  cannot  be  trusted 
with  such  a  power.  Even  large  corporations  cannot  be 
trusted  with  the  common  welfare,  involved  in  this  privilege ; 
and  while  governments  are  the  safest  depositories  of  this 
power,  they  must  be  such  as  are  not  subject  either  to  revolu- 
tion or  to  any  radical  changes  of  policy,  or  to  any  irrespon- 
sible exercise  of  power.  This,  it  appears  to  me,  is  now  the 
condition  of  our  Government.  Its  credit  has  been  and  is  now 
the  support  of  one  of  the  greatest  bonded  debts,  by  means  of 
which  the  life  and  perpetuity  of  the  Union  have  been  secured. 
The  faith  of  this  Government  now  gives  value  to  an  im- 
mense paper  currency,  for  which  the  law  has  provided  no  re- 
demption. It  seenis  preposterous,  therefore,  to  doubt  the 
ability  of  this  Government  to  give  stability  to  any  currency, 
which  it  might  adopt  as  indispensable  to  the  welfare  of  the 
nation.  .  .  .  Gold  is  diffusible,  because  it  is  accepted  by 
all  countries  as  a  standard  of  value  and  a  means  of  exchange. 
But  it  is  also  fluctuating  in  any  locality  by  the  laws  of  pro- 
duction, supply  and  demand  all  over  the  world. 

To  fix  upon  an  arbitrary  and  fluctuating  standard,  such  as 
the  worth  or  exchangeable  value  of  a  gold  dollar,  to  indicate 
the  exchangeable  power  of  a  paper  dollar,  is  as  uncertain  as 
to  take  any  other  permanent  product  of  human  labor,  such 
as  a  bushel  of  wheat  or  a  pound  of  cotton.  Nor  can  any 
standard  be  fixed  for  the  value  of  a  currency,  because  the 
uses  and  demand  of  currency  are  fluctuating  wants.  JSIow, 
the  exchangeable  value  of  anything  depends  upon  its  con- 
vertibility into  something  else,  that  has  value  at  the  option 
of  the  individual. '  This  rule  applies  to  paper  money  as  to 
anything  else.  But  how  shall  Government  give  an  ex- 
changeable value  to  a  paper  currency  ?  Can  it  do  so  by  a 
standard,  which  is  beyond  its  control,  and  which  naturally 
fluctuates,  while  the  sign  of  exchange,  indicated  by  the  paper, 
remains  the  same? 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  37 

This  is  the  unsound  state,  which  possesses  the  minds  of  our 
people  and  of  our  politicians. 

"We  must  come  out  of  this  unreasonable  condition,  or 
we  shall  be  subject,  for  all  time,  to  these  periodic  disturb- 
ances of  our  money  and  currency,  which  bring  such  wide- 
spread ruin  and  distress  on  our  commercial  industries,  and 
work,  on  the  part  of  the  Government,  positive  and  cruel  in- 
justice. The  remedy  seems  to  me  to  be  very  plain. 

First. — We  must  put  this  whole  power  of  coining  money 
or  issuing  currency,  as  Thomas  Jefferson  says,  "  where,  by 
the  Constitution,  it  properly  belongs  " — entirely  in  the  hands 
of  our  Government.  That  Government  is  a  republic ;  hence 
it  is  under  the  control  of  the  people.  Corporations  and 
States  have  hitherto,  in  some  form  or  other,  divided  this 
power  with  the  Government.  Hence  come  the  embarras- 
ments  and  the  fluctuations,  as  may  be  easily  shown.  f 
'  But  now  we  must  trust  our  Government  with  this  whole 
function  of  providing  the  standards  and  measures  of  ex- 
change, as  we  trust  it  with  the  weights  and  measures  of  all 
trade.  So  far  from  putting  the  people  in  the  power  of  our 
Government,  and  at  the  caprice  of  parties  in  power,  I  con- 
tend, it  will  bring  the  Government  more  under  the  control 
of  the  people  and  give  a  check  to  mere  party  rule ;  for  the 
more  stake  the  people  have  in  the  wisdom  and  honesty  of 
the  administration  of  the  Government,  the  more  watchful 
and  firm  they  will  be  in  its  control. 

Secondly. — "We  must  require  the  Government  to  make 
this  currency,  at  all  times,  and  at  the  option  of  the  in- 
dividual, convertible.  But  the  currency  must  be  converti- 
ble into  something,  over  which  the  Government  has  entire 
control,  and  to  which  it  can  give  a  definite  as  well  as  a  per- 
manent value,  which  is  its  own  interest-bearing  bonds.  These 
are,  in  fact,  a  mortgage  upon  the  embodied  wealth  of  the 
whole  country.  The  reality  of  their  value  is  as  sound  and 
as  permanent  as  the  Government  itself,  and  the  degree  of 
their  value  can  be  determined  exactly  by  the  amount  of  in- 
terest the  Government  may  think  proper  to  fix. 


38  COIN  AND  PAPER  CUEEENCY. 

This  convertibility  will  always  keep  a  check,  both  in  the 
amount  of  currency  and  the  amount  of  bonds,  that  may  be 
called  for  at  any  time ;  for  the  bonds  are  property,  creating 
an  income,  and  the  currency  is  merely  the  measure  of  prop- 
erty and  the  means  of  exchange.  If  currency  swells  in  the 
hands  of  the  people,  it  will  show,  that  business  is  active,  ex- 
changes numerous  and  investments  profitable.  If  currency 
shrinks  and  bonds  increase,  it  will  only  be  to  the  extent  of 
those  natural  fluctuations,  which  seasons  and  times  bring 
upon  the  productive  energies  of  man.  But  at  no  time  will 
either  the  bonds  or  the  currency  be  a  mere  drug  upon  the 
market,  for  they  will  be  mutually  convertible. 

When  we  look  into  the  history  of  the  past  for  the  real 
cause  of  those  periodical  panics,  that  have  brought  financial 
ruin  on  so  many  of  our  people,  we  find,  that  on  all  those  oc- 
casions, as  in  the  present  paralyzed  condition  of  the  trade 
and  commerce  of  the  country,  the  main  difficulty  has  origin- 
ated in  the  unfortunate  financial  policy,  adopted  by  the  Gen- 
eral Government.  A  policy,  that  is  producing  for  our  peo- 
ple what  the  policy  of  the  British  Government  has  brought 
about  for  the  people  of  that  country,  where  the  real  estate 
of  the  whole  of  England  has,  in  a  comparatively  short 
period,  been  transferred  from  165,000  of  the  past,  to  30,000 
landowners  of  the  present.  And  this,  where  the  most  rapid 
increase  of  wealth,  perhaps,  in  the  world,  is  also  attended 
with  the  worst  and  most  unequal  distribution  ;  and  where, 
instead  of  a  diffused  happiness  and  universal  prosperity,  the 
rich  grow  richer,  and  the  poor  poorer,  by  constant  vacilla- 
tions in  the  measures  of  value. 

Our  own  Government,  instead  of  taking  the  whole  sub- 
ject of  money  and  currency  entirely  in  its  hands,  as  provided 
by  the  Constitution,  allowed,  for  a  time,  local  banks  to  mul- 
tiply and  continue,  until  their  notes,  which  were  promises  to 
pay  specie  on  demand,  became  mere  delusions,  and  the  best 
informed  and  most  prudent  merchant  found  it  impossible  to 
distinguish  those,  that  were  redeemable  or  convertible  into 
gold,  from  those  that  were  not.  The  chartered  Bank  of  the 


COIN  AND  PAPEK  CURRENCY.  39 

United  States,  in  the  first  four  years  of  its  operation,  issued 
$40,000,000  of  paper  with  only  $300,000  in  specie  to  redeem 
its  notes.  Banks  evaded  the  law  by  issuing  paper  they  were 
unable  to  redeem,  when  it  was  not  wanted.  The  reason  of 
this  lay  in  the  fact,  that  the  demand  for  currency  at  times  was 
far  in  excess  of  the  quantity,  that  could  be  reabsorbed  in 
gold,  when  the  currency  was  no  longer  needed. 

Gold  was  not  its  proper  agent  of  conversion,  because  it  is 
uncertain  in  volume,  and  is  itself  subject  to  the  magnetic 
attraction  of  a  foreign  trade,  that  needs  it  to  make  up  its 
balances. 

Had  the  currency,  which  should  have  been  all  United 
States  currency,  been  at  once  convertible  into  United  States 
bonds,  which,  instead  of  locking  it  up,  as  would  be  the  case 
now,  should  have  given  a  small  interest,  until  the  currency 
was  wanted  again,  when  the  bonds  should  immediately  be 
convertible  into  currency,  we  would  have  escaped  the  panics 
and  stagnation  of  trade  and  stoppage  of  industry,  which  has 
now  affected  the  commerce  of  the  world. 

The  local  banks  were  allowed  to  continue,  until  the  war 
of  the  Rebellion  compelled  the  Government  to  issue  a  cur- 
rency as  legal  tender,  as  the  only  advisable  means  of  carry- 
ing on  its  operations  for  the  safety  of  the  nation's  life. 

In  this  extremity,  our  Government  was  literally  com- 
pelled, as  a  war  measure,  to  offer  to  these  local  banks  nearly 
double  the  ordinary  interest  of  loans,  in  order  to  induce 
them  to  lend  their  money  to  the  Government,  and  base  their 
banking  on  the  bonds  of  the  Government,  and  exchange 
their  own  currency  for  that  of  the  United  States.  This 
great  advantage,  given  to  capital  invested  in  the  local  banks, 
should  have  come  to  an  end,  when  the  war  was  over,  as  it 
was  only  a  war  measure.  At  the  end  of  the  war,  common 
justice  to  the  debtor  class  should  have  prevented  the  Gov- 
ernment from  doing  anything  to  lessen  the  purchasing  power 
of  those  legal  tender  notes,  which  the  people  had  been  liter- 
ally compelled  to  accept  for  all  products  of  their  labor.  The 
circulation  should  have  been  left  simply  to  the  natural  law. 


40  COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY. 

At  the  dose  of  the  war  the  legal  tenders  should  have  been 
made  the  permanent  currency  of  the  country,  and  the  vol- 
ume should  not  have  been  increased  or  diminished,  except  as 
per  capita,  with  the  increase  of  the  population  of  the  coun- 
try. And  further,  it  should  have  been  made  convertible 
into  the  bonds  of  the  Government,  over  which  it  has  entire 
control,  and  to  which  it  could  give  a  permanent  value  in  in- 
terest. Instead  of  this,  what  do  we  find  the  Government 
doing  ?  Resolving  that  at  a  certain  future  time,  in  1879, 
the  currency  shall  l)e  convertible  into  gold!  Why  did  not 
our  Congress  proceed  to  resolve,  that  by  that  time  there 
should  be  gold  enough  in  the  country  to  absorb  all  the  cur- 
rency, that  foreigners  might  wish  to  be  converted  into  gold  ? 
But  this  they  could  not  do.  Hence  the  present  unwilling- 
ness of  capital  to  invest  in  business  or  manufacture,  because 
the  capitalist  does  not  know  what  his  property  or  his  money 
may  be  worth,  four  years  hence.  This  currency  must  be 
made  convertible,  or  it  cannot  measure  real  property,  or 
properly  represent  it.  But  its  convertibility  into  gold  can- 
not be  made  a  matter  of  legal  enactment,  but  must  be  left 
entirely  to  the  laws  of  trade,  the  supply  and  demand  for 
gold,  as  for  any  other  commodity. 

The  only  policy  the  Government  could  adopt  to  influence 
the  influx  of  gold  into  this  country,  and  keep  its  relations 
on  a  par  with  other  commodities  and  with  the  paper  cur- 
rency, would  be,  that  the  Government  should  require  its 
import  duties  to  be  paid  in  legal  tenders,  adding  always  the 
premium  on  gold  to  the  amount  as  estimated  in  the  paper 
currency.  That  would  be  desirable  at  present,  or  until  the 
national  debt  is  extinguished ;  because  the  Government  is 
under  obligation  to  pay  the  interest  of  its  bonds  in  gold.  It 
will  have  a  tendency  to  keep  the  paper  on  a  par  with  gold  ; 
for  it  will  make  it  easier  to  pay  the  dues  of  the  Govern- 
ment ;  besides,  the  superior  convenience  and  certain  conver- 
tibility of  the  paper  will  always  have  a  tendency  to  keep  it 
on  a  par,  or  even  make  it  more  valuable  than  gold.  But 
interest-bearing  bonds  are  purely  a  subject  of  legal  enact- 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY.  41 

ment,  and  hence  can  be  controlled  by  the  Government.  This 
is  the  whole  secret  of  the  difficulty,  and  the  real  key  to  our 
financial  condition.  Our  currency,  in  point  of  fact,  is  not 
convertible  into  gold.  When  it  is  not  needed  as  at  present, 
to  the  full  extent  of  its  volume  to  effect  the  exchanges  or 
pay  the  wages  of  labor,  because  these  are  in  a  measure  in- 
terrupted, what  is  to  be  done  with  it  ?  Some  say,  "  call  it 
in  and  burn  it  up,"  that  the  rest  may  be  worth  its  own  vol- 
ume in  gold.  But  this  currency  has  already  been  in  circu- 
lation ;  it  is  now  the  measure  of  the  whole  property  of  the 
country,  and  has  been  the  measure  of  many  exchanges,  and 
now  represents  the  great  mass  of  indebtedness.  To  bring 
down  its  relative  value  to  that  of  gold  is  as  arbitrary  a 
measure  as  to  bring  it  to  the  standard  of  any  other  product 
— that  of  wheat  or  iron,  for  instance. 

It  will  place  all  in  the  power  of  those,  who  have  the  most 
gold.  It  will  transfer  a  large  part  of  the  property  of  the 
country  to  foreigners  or  to  those,  who  can  readily  draw  gold 
from  Europe. 

But  let  us  consider  this  subject  more  closely.  If  we  ad- 
mit, that  there  is  at  any  one  time  only  a  certain  amount  of 
gold  in  the  world,  it  is  certain,  that  our  community  or  nation 
cannot  obtain  more  than  its  share,  without  leaving  all  the 
others  in  a  deficiency — at  least  for  a  time. 

By  this  means  one  nation  has  the  power  to  derange  the  ex- 
changes, and  through  these,  the  industries  of  every  other  coun- 
try. The  caprice  and  power  even  of  a  few  large  capitalists 
can  do  this.  It  would  be,  therefore,  an  unwise  policy  for 
our  Government  to  allow  this  one  article  of  gold,  that  all  na- 
tions are  struggling  to  obtain  by  the  use  of  all  the  arts,  that 
human  ingenuity  can  devise,  and  which  must  be  employed 
in  settling  all  balances  of  trade  between  different  countries, 
and  which,  as  a  product  of  nature  and  of  human  industry, 
is  uncontrollable  by  any  law,  that  the  Government  can  de- 
vise— to  make  this  the  standard  of  all  values  and  the  legal- 
ized measure  of  all  trade  and  exchange  in  this  country,  would 
be  in  direct  opposition  to  the  opinion  of  many  of  the  wisest 


42  COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

statesmen,  that  our  country  has  produced.      This  will  ap- 
pear ly  the  following  expression  of  their  views  on  finance: 

OPINIONS  OF  THOMAS  JEFFERSON  AND  BENJAMIN  FKANKLIN. 

Thomas  Jefferson  in  his  letters  to  Mr.  Eppis,  volume  6  of 
his  works,  says :  "  Treasury  bills,  bottomed  on  taxes,  bear- 
ing or  not  bearing  interest  as  may  be  found  necessary, 
thrown  into  circulation,  will  take  the  place  of  so  much  gold 
and  silver.  Bank  paper  must  be  suppressed  and  the  circula- 
tion restored  to  the  nation,  to  whom  it  belongs." 

Also  the  great  statesman  and  philosopher,  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin, in  volume  4,  page  82,  of  his  works,  says  :  "  Gold  and  sil- 
ver are  not  intrinsically  of  equal  value  with  iron.  Their 
value  rests  chiefly  in  the  estimation  they  happen  to  be  in, 
among  the  generality  of  nations.  Any  other  well  founded 
credit  is  as  much  an  equivalent  as  gold  and  silver.  Paper 
money,  well  founded,  has  great  advantages  over  gold  and 
silver ;  being  light  and  convenient  for  handling  large  sums ; 
and  not  likely  to  have  its  volume  reduced  by  demands  for 
exportation.  On  the  whole,  no  method  has  hitherto  been 
formed  to  establish  a  medium  of  trade,  equal  in  all  its  ad- 
vantages to  bills  of  credit,  made  a  general  legal  tender." 

DANIEL  WEBSTER'S  OPINION. 

The  following  is  an  extract  of  constitutional  argument  of 
Daniel  Webster,  affirming  the  right  and  power  of  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  to  take  exclusive  control  over 
the  standard  of  value  and  medium  of  payment : 

"Among  the  objects,  sought  to  be  secured  by  the  Consti- 
tution, were  commerce,  credit  and  mutual  confidence  in 
matters  of  property ;  and  these  required,  among  other  things, 
a  uniform  standard  of  values,  or  mediums  of  payment  One 
of  the  first  powers,  given  to  Congress,  therefore,  is  that  of 
coining  money  and  fixing  the  value  of  foregin  coins ;  and 
one  of  the  first  restraints,  imposed  on  the  States  is  the  total 
prohibition  to  coin  money. 

"These  two  provisions  are  industriously  followed   and 


COIN  AKD  PAPEK  CUEEENCY.  43 

completed,  by  denying  to  the  States  all  the  powers  of  emit- 
ting bills  of  credit,  or  making  anything  but  gold  or  silver  a 
tender  in  payment  of  debts.  The  whole  control,  therefore, 
over  the  standard  of  value  and  medium  of  payments  is 
vested  in  the  General  Government.  And  again,  collating  the 
grant  to  Congress,  and  the  prohibition  on  the  States,  a  just 
reading  of  the  provision  is  this :  '  Congress  shall  have  the 
power  to  coin  money,  regulate  the  value  thereof  and  of 
foreign  coin,  emit  bills  of  credit,  or  make  anything  besides 
gold  and  silver  coin,  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts.' " 

In  view  of  this,  Mr.  John  G.  Drew,  a  financial  writer  of 
New  Jersey,  pertinently  asks  : 

"  "Where,  we  ask,  then,  under  the  Constitution,  have  the 
States  any  power  to  charter  corporations  with  privileges, 
that  they  themselves  cannot  exercise ;  or  where  does  Con- 
gress acquire  the  right  to  transfer  such  a  vast  power  to  a  few 
favored  capitalists  ? " 

JOHN  c.  CALHOUN'S  OPINION. 

The  following  is  an  extract  from  a  speech  of  Hon.  John 
C.  Calhoun,  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  on  the  cur- 
rency issue,  and  is  eminetly  appropriate  to  be  quoted  in  the 
prevailing  discussion : 

"  It  appears  to  me,  after  bestowing  the  best  reflection  I 
can  give  the  subject,  that  no  convertible  paper,  that  is,  no 
paper,  whose  credit  rests  on  the  promise  to  pay,  is  suitable 
for  a  currency.  It  is  the  form  of  credit  proper  in  private 
transactions  between  man  and  man,  but  not  for  a  standard 
of  value,  to  perform  exchanges  generally,  which  constitutes 
the  approximate  function  of  money  or  currency.  ~No  one  can 
doubt  but  that  the  Government  credit  is  better  than  that  of 
any  bank — more  stable  and  more  safe.  Bank  paper  is  cheap 
to  those,  who  make  it,  but  dear,  very  dear  to  those,  who  use 
it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  credit  of  the  Government,  while 
it  would  greatly  facilitate  its  financial  operations,  would  cost 
nothing,  or.  next  to  nothing,  both  to  it  and  the  people,  and 
would  of  course  add  nothing  to  the  cost  of  production,  which 


44  COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

would  give  every  branch  of  our  industries,  agriculture,  com- 
merce and  manufactures,  as  far  as  its  circulation  might  ex- 
tend, great  advantages,  both  home  and  abroad ;  and  I  now 
undertake  to  affirm,  and  without  the  least  fear,  that  I  can  be 
answered,  that  a  paper  issued  by  Government,  with  the  sim- 
ple promise  to  receive  it,  for  all  its  dues,  would,  to  the  ex- 
tent it  could  circulate,  form  a  perfect  paper  circulation, 
which  could  be  as  uniform  in  value  as  the  metals  them- 
selves ;  and  I  shall  be  able  to  prove,  that  it  is  within  the 
Constitution  and  powers  of  Congress  to  use  such  a  paper  in 
the  management  of  its  finances,  according  to  the  most  rigid 
rule  of  construing  the  Constitution." 

8PENCEK    ON    FINANCE. 

Herbert  Spencer  stands  among  the  first  writers  and  think- 
ers of  this  age.  He  studies  and  writes  for  the  sake  of  truth. 
Hence  the  following  from  his  pen  will  be  fresh  and  invigor- 
ating to  thirsty  souls  of  this  time : 

"  The  monetary  arrangements  of  any  community  are  ulti- 
mately dependent,  like  most  other  arrangements,  on  the 
morality  of  its  members.  Amongst  a  people  altogether  dis- 
honest every  mercantile  transaction  must  be  effected  in  coin 
or  goods ;  for  promises  to  pay  cannot  circulate  at  all  when, 
by  the  hypothesis,  there  is  no  probability,  that  they  will  be 
redeemed.  Conversely,  amongst  perfectly  honest  beople, 
paper  alone  wrill  form  the  circulating  medium,  and  metallic 
money  will  be  needless.  Manifestly,  therefore,  during  any 
intermediate  state,  in  which  men  are  neither  altogether  dis- 
honest nor  altogether  honest,  a  mixed  currency  will  exist ; 
and  the  ratio  of  paper  to  coin  will  vary  with  the  degree  of 
trust  individuals  place  in  each  other. 

"  There  seems  no  evading  this  conclusion.  The  greater 
the  prevalence  of  fraud,  the  greater  will  be  the  number  of 
transactions,  in  which  the  seller  will  part  with  his  goods 
only  for  an  equivalent  of  intrinsic  value  ;  that  is,  the  greater 
will  be  the  number  of  transactions,  in  which  coin,  is  required, 
and  the  more  will  the  metallic  currency  preponderate.  On 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUKKENCY.  45 

the  other  hand,  the  more  generally  men  find  each  other 
trustworthy,  the  more  frequently  will  they  take  payment  in 
notes,  bills  of  exchange  and  checks ;  the  fewer  will  be  the 
cases,  in  which  gold  and  silver  are  called  for,  and  the  smaller 
will  be  the  quantity  of  gold  and  silver  in  circulation." 

KICAEDO. 

The  pretensions  of  those,  who  are  attempting  to  drive 
this  country  back  to  the  barbarism  of  a  metallic  basis  for 
our  currency,  are  fast  giving  away  for  want  of  argument. 
It  is  being  discovered,  that  all  the  great  writers,  who  have  an- 
alyzed the  subject,  and  viewed  it  from  a  scientific  standpoint, 
came  to  the  conclusion,  that  paper  is  superior  to  metal  for  a 
currency.  Even  Ricardo,  the  high  priest  of  the  bullionists,  the 
father  of  the  present  British  system,  allows  this.  He  says : 

"A  regulated  paper  currency  is  so  great  an  improvement 
in  commerce,  that  I  should'  greatly  regret,  if  prejudice 
should  induce  us  to  return  to  a  system  of  less  utility.  The  in- 
troduction of  the  precious  metals,  for  the  purposes  of  money, 
may  with  truth  be  considered  as  one  of  the  most  important 
steps  toward  the  improvement  of  commerce  and  the  arts  of 
civilized  life.  But  it  is  no  less  true  that,  with  the  advance- 
ment of  knowledge  and  science,  we  discover,  that  it  wrould 
be  another  improvement  to  banish  them  again  from  the  em- 
ployment, to  which,  during  the  less  enlightened  period,  they 
had  been  so  advantageously  applied." 

THE   REMEDY. 

HENEY  GARY  BATED,  of  Philadelphia,  says : 
"  The  only  system,  ever  devised  for  furnishing  a  country 
with  a  volume  of  money  in  exact  accordance  with  the  needs 
of  that  country — neither  in  deficiency  nor  in  excess — is  that, 
by  which  it  is  proposed,  that  the  public  debt  of  the  United 
States  shall  be  converted  into  bonds,  bearing  3.65  per  cent, 
interest,  and  legal  tender  notes  interchangeable  with  each 
other,  at  the  pleasure  of  the  holder. 

It  appears  by  a  speech  of  "W".  "W.  Allen,  Esq.,  that  there 


46  COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

had  been  drawn  from  the  people,  in  the  shape  of  taxes  and 
duties  during  eight  years,  between  the  31st  of  August,  1865, 
and  the  first  of  November,  1873,  the  amount  of  $631,488,- 
677,  making  a  reduction  of  the  national  debt  in  eight  years 
of  $631,488,677,  showing,  that  an  annual  amount  of  $195,- 
113,356  has  been  drawn  from  the  people,  in  the  shape  of 
taxes,  and  paid  towards  the  extinguishment  of  our  national 
debt.  This  amount  was  over  and  above  the  amount,  drawn 
from  the  people  to  pay  all  the  expenses  of  the  Government 
in  addition  to  the  amount,  required  to  pay  the  interest  on 
the  national  debt. 

Such  a  rapid  withdrawal  of  the  people's  means  from  their 
ordinary  business,  is  quite  sufficient  to  account  for  the  ruin, 
now  brought  on  untold  thousands  of  the  American  people. 

For  our  Government  to  continue  such  a  policy  and  go  on 
drawing  taxes  from  the  people,  as  they  have  done  to  ex- 
tinguish the  national  debt,  before  it  is  either  due  or  wanted 
by  those,  who  hold  it,  is  about  as  wise  as  it  was  for  Pharaoh 
to  expect  his  people  to  make  bricks  without  straw. 

The  people  could  and  would  willingly  have  paid  the  five 
dollars  interest  on  every  hundred  dollars  of  the  national 
debt.  They  could  have  paid  the  interest  on  the  debt  with 
enough  of  the  principal  to  show,  that  they  honestly  intended 
to  pay  the  whole  amount. 

This  they  could  and  would  have  done,  if  they  had  been 
permitted  to  retain  the  tools  of  their  trades  ;  the  aniount  of 
currency,  on  which  they  were  compelled  to  depend  for  their 
ability  to  pay  the  taxes  on  the  cost  of  the  war. 

I  believe  I  have  shown,  that  the  policy,  adopted  by  our 
Government  to  hasten  a  return  to  specie  payments,  has  ren- 
dered the  attainment  of  that  object  more  distant  and  diffi- 
cult, than  it  was  at  the  close  of  the  war  of  the  Rebellion. 

I  am  now  convinced,  that  an  opposite  policy,  one  that 
would  have  legalized  all  the  Government  money  in  circula- 
tion at  the  close  of  the  war,  making  it  convertible  into  inter- 
est-bearing "bonds,  and  reconvertible  into  currency  at  the  will 
of  the  holder,  would  have  established  justice  between  the  peo- 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY.  47 

pie  and  the  Government,  and  would  have  caused  our  currency 
to  appreciate  to  the  value  of  gold  long  before  this.  It  would 
have  left  the  money,  the  sinews  of  war,  the  tools  of  trade, 
in  the  hands  of  the  people,  to  enable  them  to  meet  the  ex- 
penses incurred,  and  make  the  necessary  provisions  for  the 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  disbanded  soldiers,  thrown  back 
on  their  homes  to  find  employment  or  starve. 

In  conclusion,  I  would  say,  that  we  have  every  reason  to 
hope  for  our  country.  But  we  must  not  trust  in  the  amount 
of  our  gold  or  other  riches,  but  in  the  principles  of  our 
Constitution  as  free  people,  and  in  the  free  development  of 
all  our  magnificent  resources.  We  must  turn  again  the  tide 
of  immigration,  which  is  now  leaving  our  shores.  We  can 
do  this,  as  in  the  past,  by  continuing  to  offer  a  better  re- 
ward for  labor,  and  cheaper  land  for  settlement,  by  a  faith- 
ful administration  of  our  laws  in  the  interests  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  not  of  classes  or  monopolies,  and  by  trusting  in  all 
questions  of  money  and  currency  to  the  integrity  and  power 
of  our  Government,  and  not  placing  ourselves  at  the  mercy 
of  foreign  capitalists  nor  submitting  tamely  to  that  war  of 
commerce,  which  every  nation  is  willing  to  make  upon  us,  if 
we  do  not  take  effectual  means  for  our  own  self-preserva- 
tion. 

PETER  COOPER. 


PETER  COOPER'S  "NEW  DEPARTURE." 
To  the  Editors  of  the  Evening  Post : 

In  some  of  your  late  issues  I  find  an  article  by  "  S.  S.  P.," 
entitled  "Peter  Cooper's  New  Departure,"  and  an  article 
with  a  similar  title  by  my  old  and  valued  friend,  John  B. 
Jarvis.  These  communications  allude  to  the  fact,  that  seven- 
teen years  ago  I  held  it  to  be  unsafe  for  the  public  welfare, 
as  I  now  do,  to  allow  banks  to  incur  liabilities,  payable  in 
specie  on  demand,  by  issues  of  paper  and  loans  many  times 
the  amount  of  the  specie  they  held  in  their  vaults,  or  could 
obtain  from  any  source,  for  the  immediate  payment  of  their 


48  COIN  AND   PAPEE   CURRENCY. 

notes  in  gold  on  demand.  This  demand  was  made  with  all 
the  accompanying  disasters  of  widespread  ruin  and  inter- 
ruption of  credit  and  industry  in  times  called  "  panics."  The 
effect  of  the  panic  of  1857,  and  the  causes  are  very  clearly 
detailed  in  Mr.  Caldwell's  work  on  "  Ways  and  Means  of 
Payment,"  p.  485. 

Gold  is  a  commodity  and  a  product  of  industry.  Its  value 
is  determined,  like  that  of  any  other  commodity,  by  supply 
and  demand.  Why  not  let  those,  who  need  it,  pay  the 
price?  Why  should  the  necessary  facilities  of  the  home 
trade  be  contracted,  whenever  there  is  a  demand  for  gold 
for  export  ?  This  it  is  that  subjects  the  whole  country,  from 
time  to  time,  to  a  fall  or  derangement  in  prices,  and  an  in- 
terruption to  business.  Even  with  our  present  irredeemable 
legal  tenders,  all  must  see  that,  when  gold  varies  five  per 
cent,  in  a  few  days,  neither  the  value  of  these  legal  tenders, 
as  measured  by  other  property,  nor  the  rest  of  the  property 
of  the  country,  is  perceptibly  affected.  My  "  new  depart- 
ure," as  my  friends  term  it,  is  the  result  of  observation  and 
experience.  I  should  be  sorry  to  be  among  those,  who  learn 
nothing  from  the  past.  "  Hard  money,"  or  what  is  equiva- 
lent to  it,  a  paper  currency  at  all  times  redeemable  in  gold 
and  silver,  can  no  longer  be  relied  on  to  answer  the  wants 
of  this  country.  But  I  am  as  much  opposed  to  an  irredeem- 
able currency  and  an  inflated  and  irresponsible  paper  money, 
as  I  ever  was.  Our  experience  as  a  nation  should  have  taught 
us  by  this  time,  by  the  "  panics "  of  the  past  and  the  oft- 
repeated  failures  of  banks,  that  these  banks  are  utterly  un- 
able to  redeem  their  notes  in  specie,  whenever  gold  is  wanted 
of  them  in  any  large  quantities.  It  is  evident,  that  there  is 
some  intrinsic  difficulty  about  this  redemption  in  specie,  be- 
yond the  power  either  of  banks  or  of  Government  to  con- 
trol. I  trust,  that  my  friend,  John  B.  Jarvis  and  "  S.  S.  P." 
will  find,  on  a  more  careful  examination  of  what  I  have 
written,  that  I  am  as  much  opposed  to  an  irresponsible,  in- 
flated paper  currency  as  I  ever  was.  I  am  now  opposed  to 
the  present  currency,  so  far  as  it  is  irredeemable ;  but  I  am 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  49 

also  opposed  to  the  policy  of  withdrawing  the  currency  from 
circulation,  until  the  residue  shall  be  on  a  par  with  gold ;  be- 
cause that  would  work  great  injustice  to  the  debtor  class.  I 
do  not  believe  in  the  good  policy  of  selling  Government 
bonds,  as  a  means  of  resuming  specie  payments,  as  it  will 
soon  be  drained  from  us  again,  leaving  our  paper  as  it  was 
before,  irredeemable  in  gold  ;  nor  in  the  purchase  of  silver 
to  take  the  place  of  the  best  small  paper  currency  our  country 
has  ever  possessed.  It  is  a  currency,  that  is  now  serving  the 
country  without  interest,  and  is  giving  back  to  the  whole 
people  whatever  is  lost  or  worn  out  in  the  public  service. 
But  let  the  currency  at  all  times  be  exchangeable  with  in- 
terest bearing  bonds,  and  let  the  Government  not  only  make 
its  money  a  legal  tender,  but  receive  it  for  all  dues,  and  we 
shall  hear  no  more  either  of  "  inflation "  or  of  "  deprecia- 
tion." This  is  my  doctrine  "in  a  nut-shell."  I  believe, 
with  Jefferson  and  many  of  our  wisest  statesmen,  that  our 
General  Government  is  as  much  bound  by  the  Constitution 
to  hold  the  entire  control  of  all  that  is  allowed  as  a  legal 
money  measure,  in  the  regulation  of  trade  and  commerce, 
as  they  are  bound  to  fix  a  standard  for  the  pound  weight  or 
the  bushel  measure ;  that  this  measure  of  value  should  be 
made  as  unfailing  and  unalterable  as  possible ;  and  that  the 
currency  should  always  compare  well  with  the  most  con- 
densed and  valuable  form  of  human  labor,  as  it  is  now 
found  in  gold.  But  after  the  most  mature  reflection,  I  find 
myself  compelled  to  believe,  with  Benjamin  Franklin,  "that 
any  other  well-founded  credit  is  as  much  an  equivalent  for 
labor  as  gold  and  silver."  He  says,  what  all  now  know  to 
be  true,  "  that  paper  money,  well  founded,  has  great  advan- 
tage over  gold  and  silver,  being  light  and  convenient  for 
handling  in  large  sums,  and  not  likely  to  have  its  volume 
reduced  by  demand  for  exportation.  "  On  the  whole,"  he 
says,  "no  method  has  hitherto  been  found  to  establish  a 
medium  of  trade  equal,  in  all  its  advantages,  to  bills  of  credit 
made  a  general  legal  tender." 

That  such  a  policy  is  practicable  is  proved  by  the  fact, 
4 


50  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

that  the  French  Government  has  made  and  maintained  a 
legal-tender  paper  circulation  through  one  of  the  fiercest 
and,  to  them,  the  most  disastrous  wars  of  modern  times ; 
and,  having  paid  a  thousand  millions  of  indemnity,  their 
paper  money  is  to-day  almost  on  a  par  with  gold.  This  is, 
because  the  Government  took  its  own  paper  for  all  dues,  in- 
stead of  discrediting  it,  by  not  taking  it,  as  ours  does.  They 
take  their  paper  also  for  French  Government  bonds,  which 
has  resulted  in  the  public  debt  being  mainly  due  to  their 
own  citizens,  instead  of  foreigners,  as  ours  is  to-day,  thus 
becoming  a  perpetual  tax  on  the  resources  of  the  country. 

My  efforts  to  avoid  the  evils,  that  have  befallen  the 
finances  of  our  country,  will  appear  in  petitions,  sent  by 
me  to  Congress,  etc.  .  .  . 

In  conclusion,  I  would  say,  that  ever  since  paper  money 
was  issued  by  any  civilized  country,  it  has  generally  been 
assumed,  that  one  dollar  in  coin  would  float  from  three  to  five 
dollars  in  paper  ;  but  this  has  only  been  true  in  times  of  ex- 
panding credits.  As  soon  as  contraction  came  from  any 
cause,  a  panic  ensued,  for  it  was  found,  that  a  dollar  in  coin 
was  needed  for  every  dollar  in  paper.  "Why  then  keep  up  this 
vain  fiction  any  longer  ?  It  can  only  serve  to  expand  credits 
to  an  unwarrantable  degree,  while  it  permits  another  class 
to  contract  credits  suddenly,  and  to  a  ruinous  degree.  It 
leads  inevitably  to  panics.  Ts~ow,  it  seems  to  me  there  is  a 
plain  way  out  of  all  these  financial  difficulties.  If  currency 
is  issued  only  as  an  equivalent  of  bonds,  then  every  dollar 
of  the  currency  is  at  all  times  sustained,  or  floated  by  an 
equal  value  of  the  bonds  of  the  Government.  An  expansion 
of  currency  can  go  no  further  than  the  actual  equivalent,  re- 
ceived by  the  Government  for  its  bonds.  A  contraction  of 
currency  can  go  on  no  faster,  than  the  conversion  of  the  pa- 
per into  bonds.  Panics  will  be  impossible,  because  there 
will  always  be  a  means,  by  which  real  assets  can  be  at 
once  converted  into  money.  It  is  this  want  of  ready  con- 
version, that  causes  panics  and  ruins,  even  in  well-founded 
houses,  etc. 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  51 

I  have  lived  too  long  to  enter  now,  at  this  late  day  of  my 
protracted  life,  into  the  mere  partisan  disputes  of  the  day. 
I  have  no  other  object  or  interest,  than  the  welfare  of  the 
whole  people  of  my  country ;  and,  believing  as  I  do,  I  should 
hold  myself  very  much  to  blame,  if  I  withheld  my  feeble 
testimony  in  this  important  crisis  of  the  country,  and  on  a 
question  involving  such  momentous  consequences  as  a  sound 
currency  and  a  true  financial  system.  On  these  we  must  de- 
pend for  the  future  prosperity  and  happiness  of  the  whole 
industrial  class,  with  whom  I  have  ever  been  in  sympathy. 
I  confess  to  a  most  profound  anxiety  for  all  those,  who,  with 
their  best  efforts,  find  life  a  great  struggle  for  a  bare  sub- 
sistence. 

These  troubles  will  be  greatly  lessened  when  gold  be- 
comes, as  it  should  be,  only  a  guide  in  the  exchanges  of  com- 
merce, as  the  mariner  looks  at  the  North  star  as  his  best 
guide  over  a  dangerous  ocean. 

PETER  COOPER. 


ADDRESS   OF  THE  NATIONAL   INDEPENDENT   PARTY  TO  THE 
CONVENTION  AT  INDIANAPOLIS,  MAY  IT,  18T6. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Convention : 

We  have  met,  my  friends,  to  unite  in  a  course  of  efforts 
to  find  out,  and,  if  possible,  to  remove  a  cause  of  evil,  that 
has  shrunk  the  value  of  the  real  estate  of  the  nation  to  a  con- 
dition, where  it  cannot  be  sold,  or  mortgages  obtained  on  it 
for  much  more  than  one-half  the  amount,  that  the  same 
property  would  have  brought  three  years  ago.  This  dire 
calamity  has  been  brought  on  our  country  by  the  acts  of  our 
Government.  The  first  act  took  from  the  national  mone}7  its 
power  to  pay  interest  on  bonds  and  duties  on  imports.  The 
second  act  has  contracted  the  currency  of  the  country,  until 
it  has  shrunk  the  value  of  property  to  its  present  condition 
by  destroying  public  confidence  ;  and  that  without  skrinking 
any  of  the  debts  contracted  in  its  use. 


52          COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

I  do  most  humbly  hope,  that  I  will  be  able  to  show  the 
fatal  causes,  which  have  been  allowed  to  operate  and  bring 
this  wretchedness  and  ruin  to  the  homes  of  untold  thousands 
of  men  and  women  throughout  our  country. 

Facts  will  show,  that  it  was  the  unwise  acts  of  our  own 
Government,  that  have  allowed  a  policy  to  prevail,  more  in 
the  interest  of  foreign  Governments  than  our  own. 

It  was  these  unwise  acts  of  legislation,  that  brought  dis- 
credit on  our  national  money,  as  I  have  said,  by  introducing 
into  the  law,  which  created  it  that  terrible  word  except,  which 
took  from  our  legal  money  its  power  to  pay  interest  on  bonds, 
and  duties  on  imports. 

The  introduction  of  that  little  word  except  into  the  orig- 
inal law  dreiv  tears  from  the  eyes  of  Thaddeus  Stephens, 
when  he  looked  down  the  current  of  events  and  saw  our 
bonds  in  the  hands  of  foreigners,  who  would  be  receiving  a 
gold  interest  on  every  hundred  dollars  of  bonds,  that  cost 
them  but  fifty  or  sixty  dollars  in  gold. 

But  for  the  introduction  of  that  word  except  into  the  orig- 
inal law,  our  bonds  would  have  been  taken  at  par  by  our 
own  people,  and  the  interest  would  have  been  paid  at  home 
in  currency,  instead  of  being  paid  to  foreigners  in  gold. 

An  additional  calamity  has  been  brought  on  our  country 
by  a  national  policy,  that  has  taken  from  the  people  their 
currency,  the  tools  of  their  trades,  the  very  life-blood  of  the 
traffic  and  commerce  of  our  country. 

Facts  show,  that  in  1865  there  were  in  the  hands  of  the 
people,  as  a  currency,  $58  per  head,  and  that  at  a  time  of 
our  greatest  national  prosperity. 

We  have  now  arrived  at  a  time  of  unequalled  adversity, 
with  a  currency  in  1875  of  $17T8^j-  per  head,  with  failures, 
amounting  to  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  in  a  year. 

Among  the  causes,  that  now  afflict  the  country,  it  may  be 
well  to  look  at  the  enormous  increase  in  our  foreign  impor- 
tations, which  amounted  to  359  millions  in  the  year  1868, 
increased  to  684  millions  of  dollars  in  18T3,  and  were  574 
millions  of  dollars  in  1875. 


COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY.  53 

I  think  you  will  agree  with  me,  when  I  say,  that  prosper- 
ity can  never  be  restored  to  our  beloved  country  by  a  national 
policy,  that  enforces  idleness  and  financial  distress  on  so  vast 
a  number  of  the  laborers  and  business  men  of  this  country. 
Our  nation's  wealth  must  forever  depend  on  the  application 
of  knowledge,  economy,  and  well-directed  labor  to  all  the 
useful  and  necessary  purposes  of  life,  but  also  a  proper  legis- 
lation for  the  people. 

The  American  people  can  never  buy  anything  cheap  from 
foreign  countries,  that  must  be  bought  at  the  cost  of  leavmg 
our  own  good  raw  materials  unused,  and  our  own  labor 
unemployed. 

I  find  myself  compelled  to  believe,  that  much  of  the  past 
legislation  of  our  country,  in  reference  to  tariff  and  cur- 
rency, has  been  adopted  under  the  advice  and  influence  of 
men  in  the  interest  of  foreign  nations,  that  have  a  direct 
motive  to  mislead  and  deceive  us.  Our  prosperity  as  a 
nation  will  commence  to  return,  when  the  Congress  of  our 
country  shall  assume  its  own  inherent  sovereign  right  to  fur- 
nish all  the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States  a  redeemable, 
uniform,  unfluctuating  national  currency. 

I  do  heartily  agree  with  Senator  Jones,  when  he  says,  that 
"  the  present  is  the  acceptable  time  to  undo  the  unwitting 
and  blundering  work  of  1873  ;  and  to  render  our  legislation 
on  the  subject  of  money,  consistent  with  the  physical  facts 
concerning  the  stock  and  supply  of  the  precious  metals 
throughout  the  world,  and  conformable  to  the  Constitution 
of  our  country." 

I  sincerely  hope,  that  the  concluding  advice  of  Senator 
Jones  will  make  a  living  and  lasting  impression,  when 
he  says,  speaking  to  the  present  Senate,  "  We  cannot, 
we  dare  not,  avoid  speedy  action  on  the  subject.  Not 
only  does  reason,  justice  and  authority  unite  in  urging  us 
to  retrace  our  steps,  but  the  organic  law  commands  us  to 
do  so ;  and  the  presence  of  peril  enjoins  what  the  law  com- 
mands." 

The  Senator  states  a  most  important  fact,  and  one  which 


54  COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

all  know  to  be  true,  "  that  by  interfering  with  the  standards 
of  the  country,  Congress  has  led  the  country  away  from  the 
realms  of  prosperity,  and  thrust  it  beyond  the  bounds  of 
safety."  He  says,  truly,  "  to  refuse  to  replace  it  upon  its 
former  vantage-ground  would  be  to  incur  a  responsibility 
and  a  deserved  reproach,  greater  than  that,  which  men  have 
ever  before  felt  themselves  able  to  bear/' 

It  will  require  all  the  wisdom,  that  can  be  gathered  from 
the  history  and  experience  of  the  past,  to  enable  us  to  work 
out  onr  salvation  from  the  evils,  which  an  unwise  legislation 
has  brought  on  our  country. 

It  will  be  found,  that  nothing  short  of  a  full,  fair  and 
frank  performance  of  the  first  duty,  enjoined  on  Congress 
by  the  Constitution,  will  ever  restore  permanent  prosperity 
to  us  as  a  nation. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  the  most  essential  element  of 
our  colonial  and  national  prosperity  was  obtained  by  the  use 
of  the  legal  tender  pa/per  money — the  very  thing,  that  our 
present  rulers  seem  now  determined  to  ridicule  and  bring 
into  contempt.  We  are  apt  to  forget,  that  the  continental 
money  secured  for  us  a  country,  and  the  greenback  cur- 
rency has  saved  us  a  nation. 

Sir  A.  Alison,  the  able  and  indefatigable  English  his- 
torian, has  borne  testimony  to  the  superior  power  and  value 
of  paper  money.  He  says  :  "  When  sixteen  hundred  thou- 
sand men,  on  both  sides,  were  in  the  continental  wars  with 
France  in  Germany  and  Spain  alone,  where  nothing  could 
be  purchased  except  by  specie,  it  is  not  surprising,  that 
guineas  went,  where  they  were  so  much  needed,  and  bore  so 
high  a  price.  ...  In  truth  such  was  the  need  of  precious 
metals,  owing  to  this  cause,  that  one-tenth  of  the  currency 
of  the  world  was  attracted  to  Germany  as  a  common  centre, 
and  the  demand  could  not  be  supplied ;  and  by  a  decree 
in  September,  1813,  from  Peterwalsden,  in  Germany,  the 
allied  sovereigns  issued  paper  notes,  guaranteed  by  Russia, 
Prussia,  and  England.  These  notes  passed  as  cash  from 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  55 

Kamtschatka  to  the  Rhine,  and  gave  the  currency,  which 
brought  the  war  to  a  successful  close." 

In  a  recent  edition  of  the  "  History  of  Europe,"  Sir  A. 
Alison  gives  an  additional  evidence  of  the  important  ad- 
vantages, which  experience  has  demonstrated  to  result  from 
the  use  of  paper  currency. 

He  says :  "  To  the  suspension  of  cash  payments  by  the  act 
of  1797,  and  the  power  in  consequence,  vested  in  the  Bank 
of  England,  of  expanding  its  paper  circulation  in  proportion 
to  the  abstraction  of  a  metallic  currency,  the  wants  of  the 
country  and  the  resting  of  the  national  industry  on  a  basis, 
not  liable  to  be  taken  away  by  the  mutations  of  commerce 
or  the  necessities  of  war — it  is  to  these  facts,  that  the  salva- 
tion of  the  empire  must  be  ascribed.  ...  It  is  remark- 
able, that  this  admirable  system,  which  may  be  truly  called 
the  working  power  of  nations  during  war,  because  at  the 
close  of  the  war  the  object  of  the  most  determined  hostility 
on  the  part  of  the  great  capitalists  and  chief  writers  of  Polit- 
ical Economy  in  the  country.  ..."  Here,  however,"  says 
Alison,  "  as  everywhere  else,  experience,  the  great  test  of 
the  truth,  has  determined  the  question.  The  adoption  of 
the  opposite  system  of  contracting  the  paper  currency,  in 
proportion  to  the  abstraction  of  the  metallic  currency  by  the 
acts  of  1819  and  1844,  followed,  as  they  were,  by  the  mone- 
tary crises  of  1825,  1839  and  1847,  have  demonstrated  be- 
yond a  doubt,  that  it  was  in  the  system  of  an  expansive 
currency,  that  Great  Britain,  during  the  war,  found  the  sole 
means  of  her  salvation.  From  1797  to  1815  commerce, 
manufactures  and  agriculture  advanced  in  England,  in  spite 
of  all  the  evils  of  war,  with  a  rapidity  greater,  than  they 
had  previously  done  in  centuries  before.  This  proves  be- 
yond a  doubt  the  power  of  paper  money  to  increase  the 
wealth  of  a  nation.'' 

It  is  worthwhile  to  observe, that  this  same  Sir  A.  Alison, 
who  speaks  so  wisely  on  this  subject  in  reference  to  the  his- 
tory of  his  own  country,  while  scanning  a  few  years  ago  the 
prosperity  of  our  country,  during  the  war  of  the  Rebellion 


56  COIN   AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

and  immediately  after,  lias  a  foreboding  of  what  might  hap- 
pen, and  remarks  :  "  The  American  Government  may  make 
linancial  and  legislative  mistakes,  which  may  check  the  pro- 
gress of  the  nation  and  counteract  the  advantages,  which 
paper  money  has  already  bestowed  upon  them ;  they  may 
adopt  the  unwise  and  unjust  system,  which  England  adopted 
at  the  close  of  the  French  war  ;  they  may  resolve  to.  pay  in 
gold,  and  with  low  prices,  the  debt  contracted  with  paper 
and  with  high  prices.  But  whatever  they  may  do,"  he  adds, 
"  nothing,  can  shake  the  evidence,  which  the  experience  of 
that  nation  during  the  last  six  years  affords  of  the  power  of 
paper  money  to  promote  a  nation's  welfare." 

Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  his  "  Malachi  Margrowther's  Letters," 
shows  how  the  wealth  of  a  nation  is  increased  by  paper 
money.  "  I  assume,"  he  says,  "  without  hazard  of  contra- 
diction, that  banks  have  existed  in  Scotland  for  nearly  one 
hundred  and  twenty  years ;  that  they  have  flourished,  and 
the  country  has  flourished  with  them  ;  and  that  during  the 
last  twenty  years  particularly  the  notes,  and  especially  the 
small  notes,  which  the  banks  distribute,  supply  all  the  de- 
mand for  a  medium  of  currency.  This  system  has  so  com- 
pletely expelled  gold  from  Scotland,  that  you  never  by  any 
chance  espy  a  guinea  there,  except  in  the  purse  of  an  acci- 
dental stranger,  or  in  the  coffers  of  the  banks  themselves. 
But  the  facilities,  which  this  paper  has  afforded  to  the  in- 
dustrious and  enterprising  agriculturists  and  manufacturers, 
as  well  as  to  the  trustees  of  the  public,  in  executing  national 
works,  have  converted  Scotland  from  a  poor,  miserable, 
barren  country  into  one  where,  if  nature  has  done  less,  art 
and  industry  have  done  more  than,  perhaps,  in  any  other 
country  in  Europe,  England  not  excepted." 

President  Grant,  in  his  message  of  1873,  said :  "  The  ex- 
perience of  the  present  panic  has  proven,  that  the  currency 
of  the  country,  based,  as  it  is,  upon  its  credit,  is  the  best 
that  has  ever  been  devised.  ...  In  view  of  the  great 
actual  contraction,  that  has  taken  place  in  the  currency,  and 
the  comparative  contraction  continuously  going  on,  due  to 


COIN  AND   PAPER   CTJEEENCY.  57 

the  increase  of  the  population,  the  increase  of  manufactories 
and  of  all  industries,  I  do  not  believe  there  is  too  much  of 
it  now  for  the  dullest  period  of  the  year." 

Notwithstanding  these  recommendations  of  the  President, 
Congress  has  continued  to  tax  the  people  and  contract  the 
national  currency  in  a  vain  effort  to  arrive  at  specie  pay- 
ments. 

Our  Government  should  have  left  that  amount  of  cur- 
rency in  the  hands  of  the  people,  which  the  necessities  of 
war  had  compelled  it  to  put  in  circulation,  as  the  only  means 
of  the  national  salvation. 

Every  dollar  of  currency,  paid  out,  whether  gold,  silver, 
or  paper,  was  given  out  for  value  received,  and  thus  be- 
came, by  the  act  of  the  Government,  a  valid  claim  for  a 
dollar's  worth  of  the  whole  property  of  the  country.  Hence 
not  a  dollar  of  it  should  ever  have  been  withdrawn. 

It  is  now  almost  universally  believed,  that  had  the  Treas- 
ury notes  continued,  as  at  first  issued,  to  be  received  for  all 
forms  of  taxes,  duties  and  debts,  they  would  have  circulated 
to  this  day,  as  they  did  then,  as  so  much  gold,  precisely  as 
the  Government  paper  did  circulate  in  France,  when  put 
upon  the  same  footing. 

This  would  have  saved  our  country  more,  than  one-half 
of  the  amount  of  the  whole  expenses  of  the  war  in  the  pres- 
ent shrinkage  of  values,  and  the  interruption  to  honest  in- 
dustry. It  would  have  saved  us  also  from  the  perpetual 
drainage  of  gold  to  pay  interest  on  our  foreign  indebtedness. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  I  have  heretofore  enlarged 
upon  what  seemed  to  me  the  true  financial  policy  of  this 
country  in  pamphlets  and  writings,  that  I  have  had  the 
honor  to  lay  before  the  country,  so  that  it  would  be  a  vain 
repetition  to  go  much  into  that  subject  now. 

The  paper  currency,  commonly  called  legal  tenders  or 
greenbacks,  was  actually  paid  out  for  value  received  as  so 
much  gold,  when  gold  could  not  be  obtained. 

This  being  an  incontrovertible  fact,  it  follows,  that  every 
Treasury  note,  demand  note,  or  legal  tender,  given  out  as 


58  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

money,  in  payment  for  any  form  of  labor  and  property,  re- 
ceived by  the  Government,  became,  in  the  possession  of  its 
owners,  real  dollars,  that  could  not  be  taken  constitutionally 
from  the  people,  except  by  uniform  taxes,  as  on  other 
property. 

But  whether  our  currency  will  be  always  on  a  par  with 
gold  or  not,  I  have  shown  from  history,  and  incontrovertible 
facts  prove  it,  that  the  commercial  and  industrial  prosperity 
of  a  country  do  not  depend  upon  the  amount  of  gold  and 
silver  there  is  in  circulation.  Our  prosperity  must  continu- 
ally depend  upon  the  industry,  the  enterprise,  the  busy  in- 
ternal trade  and  a  true  independence  of  foreign  nations, 
which  a  paper  circulation,  well  based  on  sound  credit,  has 
always  been  found  to  promote. 

But  I  believe  prosperity  can  never  again  bless  our  glori- 
ous country,  until  justice  is  established,  by  giving  back  to 
the  people  the  exact  amount  of  currency,  found  in  circula- 
tion at  the  close  of  the  war.  That  was  the  price  of  the 
nation's  life.  It  ought  to  be  restored  and  made  the  perma- 
nent and  unfluctuating  measure  of  all  values,  through  all 
coming  time — never  to  be  increased  or  diminished,  only, 
as  per  capita,  with  the  increase  of  the  inhabitants  of  our 
country. 

This  currency  must  be  made  receivable  for  all  forms  of 
taxes,  duties  and  debts,  and  convertible  into  interest-bear- 
ing bonds,  at  some  equitable  rate  of  interest,  and  inconver- 
tible into  the  currency  at  the  will  of  the  holder.  This,  we 
believe,  will  secure  uniformity  of  value  to  a  degree,  that 
gold  has  never  attained.  President  Steele,  of  Lawrence 
University,  has  well  said  on  this  subject : 

"In  fixing  a  standard,  it  is  essential  to  select  something, 
that  is  as  nearly  as  possible  invariable.  The  conventional 
unit  of  lineal  measure  must  not  be  a  line,  which  averages  a 
foot,  though  it  may  be  fourteen  inches  to-day  and  nine 
inches  to-morrow.  The  bushel  measure  should  not  contain 
two  or  three  quarts  more  or  less  at  one  time  than  at  another. 
For  the  same  reason  it  is  desirable,  that  the  unit  of  value 


COIN   AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY.  59 

should  have  the  same  purchasing  power  next  week,  that  it 
has  now." 

In  conclusion,  Gentlemen,  I  think  we  have  reason  to  con- 
gratulate ourselves  on  the  great  awakening  of  the  public 
mind  in  regard  to  this  question  of  finance.  The  people  are 
beginning  to  recognize  their  rights  and  their  duties  in  this 
matter.  I  think  the  time  has  come  to  exhort  every  one  to  go 
to  the  ballot-box  and  select  good  and  true  men,  who  will  legis- 
late in  accordance  with  justice,  the  Constitution  and  the 
true  interests  of  the  people ;  and  give  us  what  will  always 
stand  as  a  monument  of  political  wisdom,  a  true  national 
currency. 

"With  devout  wishes  for  the  success  of  all  measures,  tending 
to  this  object,  I  remain  yours,  in  the  common  interests  of 
our  beloved  country, 

PETER  COOPER. 


THE  PLATFORM  OF  THE  INDEPENDENT  PARTY. 

The  following  is  the  platform  of  the  Independent  Party, 
as  adopted  by  its  National  Convention  at  Indianapolis : 

"  The  Independent  Party  is  called  into  existence  by  the 
necessities  of  the  people,  whose  industries  are  prostrated, 
whose  labor  is  deprived  of  its  just  reward,  as  the  result  of 
the  serious  mismanagement  of  the  national  finances,  which 
errors  both  the  Republican  and  Democratic  parties  neglect 
to  correct.  In  view  of  the  failure  of  these  parties  to  furnish 
relief  to  the  depressed  industries  of  the  country,  thereby 
disappointing  the  just  hopes  and  expectations  of  a  suffering 
people,  we  declare  our  principles  and  invite  all  independent 
and  patriotic  men  to  join  our  ranks  in  this  movement  for 
financial  reform  and  industrial  emancipation. 

First — We  demand  the  immediate  and  unconditional  re- 
peal of  the  Specie-resumption  Act  of  January  14,  1875,  and 
the  rescue  of  our  industries  from  the  disaster  and  ruin,  re- 
sulting from  its  enforcement ;  and  we  call  upon  all  patriotic 
men  to  organize  in  every  Congressional  district  of  the  country, 


60          COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY. 

with  the  view  of  electing  representatives  to  Congress,  who 
will  legislate  for,  and  a  Chief  Magistrate,  who  will  cary  out 
the  wishes  of  the  people  in  this  regard,  and  thus  stop  the 
present  suicidal  and  destructive  policy  of  contraction. 

Second — We  believe,  that  United  States  notes,  issued 
directly  by  the  Government  and  convertible  on  demand  into 
United  States  obligations,  bearing  an  equitable  rate  of  inte- 
rest (not  exceeding  one  cent  a  day  on  each  one  hundred 
dollars),  and  interchangeable  with  United  States  notes  at 
par,  will  afford  the  best  circulating  medium  ever  devised ; 
such  United  States  notes  should  be  a  full  legal  tender  for 
all  purposes,  except  for  the  payment  of  such  obligations  as 
are  by  existing  contracts  expressly  made  payable  in  coin. 
And  we  hold,  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  provide 
such  a  circulating  medium,  and  we  insist,  in  the  language  of 
Thomas  Jefferson  "  that  bank  paper  must  be  suppressed  and 
the  circulation  restored  to  the  nation,  to  whom  it  belongs." 

Third — It  is  the  paramount  duty  of  the  Government  in 
all  its  legislation  to  keep  in  view  the  full  development  of  all 
legitimate  business,  agricultural,  mining,  manufacturing  and 
commercial. 

Fourth — We  most  earnestly  protest  against  any  further 
issue  of  gold  bonds,  for  sale  in  foreign  markets,  by  means 
of  which  we  woujd  be  made,  for  a  longer  period,  hewers  of 
wTood  and  drawers  of  water  for  foreign  nations,  especially  as 
the  American  people  would  gladly  and  promtly  take  at  par 
all  the  bonds  the  Government  may  need  to  sell,  provided 
they  are  made  payable  at  the  option  of  the  holder,  although 
bearing  interest  at  three  and  sixty-five  one-hundredths  per 
cent,  per  annum,  or  even  a  lower  rate. 

Fifth — We  further  protest  against  the  sale  of  Government 
bonds  for  the  purpose  of  buying  silver  to  be  used  as  a 
substitute  for  our  more  convenient  and  less  fluctuating  frac- 
tional currency,  which,  although  well  calculated  to  enrich 
the  owners  of  silver  mines,  yet  in  operation  will  still  further 
oppress  through  taxation  an  already  overburdened  people." 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  61 

PETER   COOPER'S   ACCEPTANCE. 

NEW  YORK,  May  31,  1876. 

Hon.  MOSES  "W.  FIELD,  Chairman,  and  Hon.  THOMAS  J. 
DURANT,  Secretary  of  the  National  Executive  Council  of 
the  Independent  Party : 

GENTLEMEN — Your  formal,  official  notification  of  the 
unanimous  nomination,  tendered  by  the  National  Conven- 
tion of  the  Independent  Party  at  Indianapolis,  on  the  17th 
instant,  to  me  for  the  high  office  of  President  of  the  United 
States  is  before  me  ;  .  .  .  together  with  an  authen- 
ticated copy  of  the  admirable  platform,  which  the  Conven- 
tion adopted. 

While  I  most  heartily  thank  the  Convention  through  you 
for  the  great  honor  they  have  thus  conferred  upon  me, 
kindly  permit  me  to  say,  that  there  is  a  bare  possibility,  if 
wise  counsel  prevails,  that  the  sorely  needed  relief  from  the 
blighting  effects  of  past  unwise  legislation,  relative  to 
finance,  which  the  people  so  earnestly  seek,  may  yet  be  had 
through  either  the  Republican  or  Democratic  party ;  both 
of  them  meeting  in  national  convention  at  an  early  date. 

It  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  assure  you  that,  while  I  have 
no  aspiration  for  the  position  of  Chief  Magistate  of  this 
great  Republic,  I  will  most  cheerfully  do  what  I  can  to  for- 
ward the  best  interests  of  my  country. 

I,  therefore,  accept  your  nomination,  conditionally ',  ex- 
pressing the  earnest  hope,  that  the  Independent  Party  may 
yet  attain  its  exalted  aims,  while  permitting  me  to  step  aside 
and  remain  in  that  quiet,  which  is  most  congenial  to  my  na- 
ture and  time  of  life. 

Most  respectfully  yours, 

PETER  COOPER. 


(From  the  New  York  Mercantile  Journal.) 
"  The  New  York.  Herald  has  just  sent  one  of  its  corps  to 
Peter  Cooper,  who  thus  was  led  to  give  a  casual  review  of 


62  COIN  AND   PAPEE   CtJKRENCY. 

the  present  financial  and  political  situation.  It  -is  needless 
for  us  to  say,  that  anything,  dictated  by  Mr.  Cooper's  clear 
head  and  honest  heart,  is  eminently  worthy  of  attention  " : 

"  With  a  split  at  St.  Louis,"  said  our  venerable  fellow-citi- 
zen, Mr.  Peter  Cooper — "with  a  split  at  St.  Louis  and  the  elec- 
tion of  President,  thrown  into  the  House  of  Representatives,  I 
regard  my  possible  selection  as  President  of  the  United  States 
with  positive  alarm.  And  yet,  continued  the  aged  patriot, 
as  a  mild  zephyr  from  the  southwest  wind  gently  lifted  his 
locks  and  brushed  them  out  upon  his  shoulder — and  yet  I 
am  ready  for  the  sacrifice.  It's  hard  to  give  up  the  comforts 
and  conveniences  of  a  home  in  exchange  for  the  push  and 
tussle  of  a  life  in  Washington ;  but  I  will  respond  to  the  call 
of  my  country.  For  her  sake  I  am  ready  to  give  up  life  it- 
gelf .  So  probable  is  the  success  of  the  *  soft  money  ticket ' 
that  I  am  most  anxious,  if  I  can  retire  with  honor,  to  have 
Governor  William  Allen,  of  Ohio,  in  my  place.  The  peo- 
ple don't  know  that  man  enough.  In  the  early  days,  when 
these  principles  were  but  little  understood,  Bill  Allen  was 
firm  and  uncompromising.  He  was  able,  bold,  clear,  defiant, 
enlightened,  far-seeing  and  thoroughly  well-informed  on  this 
great  subject  of  finance — so  little  comprehended,  even  now, 
by  many,  who  write  and  talk  with  most  pretense.  The 
Herald  of  this  morning  gives  the  world  a  good  idea  of  Gov- 
ernor Allen.  It  could  not  be  improved  on.  At  dinner  to- 
day Judge  Proctor  Knott,  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
told  me,  that  he  knew  Governor  Allen  well,  and  that  he  is 
one  of  the  ablest  and  purest  of  men.  All  accounts  agree  in 
representing  him  as  a  singularly  able  man,  of  keen  foresight, 
sound  judgment,  and  practical  sense.  Allen  is  a  man  of  tre- 
mendous nerve.  He  is  firmness  personified,  and,  if  he  were 
President,  the  people  would  understand,  that  they  had  a  man 
at  the  helm  with  a  will  of  his  own,  and  a  conscience  behind 
it. 

REPORTER — "  You  appear  confident^of  a  split  at  St.  Louis." 

Mr.  COOPER — Yes,  sir,  I  do.  We  can  hope  for  nothing  from 

the  Republicans.     They  are  joined  to  their  idols.     Hard- 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CUKKENCY.  63 

money  is  their  god,  and  an  absurd  divinity  it  is  to  be  sure. 
I  wonder,  if  they  ever  read  Ben  Franklin.  Ben  was  a  great 
man  in  his  way.  And  how  admirably  he  put  this  very  mat- 
ter years  and  years  ago.  Pie  said  : — "  Gold  and  silver  are 
not  intrinsically  of  equal  value  with  iron.  Their  value  rests 
chiefly  in  the  estimation  they  happen  to  be  in  among  the 
generality  of  nations.  Any  other  well  founded  credit  is  as 
much  an  equivalent  as  gold  or  silver.  Paper  money,  well 
founded,  has  great  advantages  over  gold  and  silver,  being 
light  and  convenient  for  handling  large  sums,  and  not  likely 
to  have  its  volume  reduced  by  demands  for  exportation.  On 
the  whole,  no  method  has  hitherto  been  formed  to  establish 
^a  medium  of  trade  equal  in  all  its  advantages  to  bills  of 
credit  made  a  general  legal  tender."  Of  course,  the  Repub- 
licans see  no  wisdom  in  this.  They  have  found  a  convenient 
war-cry,  and  will  doubtless  hold  to  it.  So  I  place  them  entirely 
one  side.  They  will  nominate  their  candidate  distinctively 
as  a  hard-money  man.  For  him  the  hard-money  Republic- 
ans will  vote,  of  course.  If  there  shall  be  at  the  same  time 
an  objectionable  soft-money  man  in  the  field,  for  whom 
would  the  soft-money  Republicans  be  most  likely  to  vote 
in  this  crisis  ?  And  this  is  a  crisis.  It  is  a  crisis,  which 
may  well  make  a  patriot  tremble.  We  are  drifting  to  bank- 
ruptcy, thence  to  starvation,  and  thence  to  revolution, 

etc Mr.  Tilden  came  into  line  in  time  to  join 

the  hurrah  and  get  his  reward.  - ....  The  three 
tickets  will  go  before  the  people.  There'll  be  no  choice. 
And  then  I  see,  with  dread  and  apprehension,  that,  as  Gen- 
eral Butler  said  in  the  Herald  on  Saturday,  the  soft-money 
ticket  will  sweep  the  House.  Governor  Allen  must  be  on 
that  ticket,  and  yet,  if  Heaven  wills  it  so,  I  am  ready  to  be 
sacrificed. 

R. — "  Not  much  of  a  sacrifice  either,  is  it  ?  Peter  Cooper 
President  and  $50,000  a  year  isn't  a  very  awful  fate." 

Mr.  C. — Well,  Mr.  Allen  is  some  years  younger  than  I  am. 
As  for  the  $50,000, 1  shouldn't  touch  the  money.  I  should 
give  it  away,  or  turn  it  over  to  the  Cooper  Union,  perhaps. 


64  COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

K. — "  Are  the  strikers  after  you  much  ? " 

Mr.  C. — Tolerably,  or  rather  intolerably.  I  get  letters 
and  applications  from  everywhere  and  everybody.  A  great 
many  newspapers  want  help  in  carrying  on  the  great  prin- 
ciples of  soft-money  doctrines.  They  are  mainly  from  the 
West,  but  some  are  nearer  home.  The  Herald  is  always 
very  courteous  in  printing  facts  and  news  about  us  and  our 
progress.  I  don't  intend  to  send  these  applicants  any  money, 
but  I  send  all  of  them  my  pamphlets  and  our  documents  for 
their  comfort  and  instruction.  I  get  letters  from  all  sections 
of  the  country,  giving  information  about  organizations,  and 
before  long  demonstrations  will  be  made.  The  labor  unions 
are  taking  an  active  interest  in  the  matter.  The  Bricklay- 
ers' Union  are  heart  and  soul  in  the  movement.  They  tell 
me  they  see  the  folly  of  strikes,  and  hope  to  be  able  to  carry 
their  points  hereafter  without  recourse  to  that  absurdity. 
The  laboring  men  of  the  country  seem  to  have  confidence 
in  me  as  one  of  themselves,  and  that  may  make  it  difficult 
and  inexpedient  to  substitute  Governor  Allen  for  me,  but  I 
fervently  hope  and  pray  to  effect  that  end,  etc.  .  .  . 

"  WASHINGTON,  February  21,  1874. 

MY  DEAR  SIR — Accept  my  thanks  for  your  long  and  in- 
structive letter  about  finance.  I  have  read  it  carefully  and 
hope  to  profit  by  your  suggestions. 

•  With  high  respect, 

Your  obt.  Ser't. 

ROSCOE   CONKLING. 

The  HONORABLE 

PETER  COOPER, 

New  York. 


ADDRESS  AT  Music  HALL,  NEW  HAVEN,  CONN.,  March  31, 

1876. 
(From  the  New  Haven  Union.} 

"  The  spacious  edifice  was  crowded  in  every  part ;  the  aisles 
and  lobbies,  being  packed  and  every  seat  taken,  before  the 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  65 

meeting  was  called  to  order.  Hundreds  were  turned  away 
unable  to  get  even  a  glimpse  of  the  platform,  or  within 
hearing  of  the  speakers,  etc.,  .  .  .  magnificent  was  the 
sight,  when  that  grand  old  man,  Peter  Cooper,  rose  to  offer 
words  of  advice  to  the  mighty  throng  1  The  audience  treated 
the  great  American  philanthropist  to  a  perfect  ovation,  and 
every  heart  seemed  to  swell  with  pride  and  emotion  when 
the  workingman's  benefactor  stood  before  them  in  animated 
form.  It  falls  to  the  lot  of  few  men  to  have  such  homage 
paid  them,  while  in  the  flesh ;  but  the  Father  of  the  Universe 
is  just,  and  Peter  Cooper  in  hoary  old  age  receives,  as  he  de- 
serves, the  greatest  tributes,  that  can  be  offered  by  a  grate- 
ful people  to  one  of  their  fellows,  whose  whole  life  has  been 
devoted  to  humanity  and.  the  elevation  of  the  poor  and 
lowly. 

We  know — we  feel  in  our  very  soul — that  the  truthful 
words  of  advice,  offered  by  the  world's  greatest  philanthro- 
pist, were  not  in  vain.  Mr.  Cooper  is  beyond  the  villification 
of  political  manipulators  and  subsidized  editors.  No  man 
can  be  found  so  base  as  to  charge,  that  he,  in  his  eighty- 
seventh  year,  would  journey  seventy-five  miles  for  the  pur- 
pose of  aiding  a  fraudulent  or  an  unrighteous  cause.  The 
instincts  of  the  honest  old  veteran  teach  him,  that  this  coun- 
try is  being  led  on  to  destruction  under  the  guidance  of  the 
money  power,  and,  though  at  painful  sacrifice,  he  feels  it 
his  duty  to  warn  the  people  of  their  danger.  Peter  Cooper 
is  no  illusionist.  He  does  not  desire  repudiation  or  infla- 
tion. He  is  the  personification  of  Honesty  and  Truth,  and 
all  the  wealth  in  the  world  would  not  induce  him  to  espouse 
a  dishonest  cause,  etc.,  .... 

A  part  of  the  words  of  solid  truth,  given  by  Mr.  Cooper  on 
this  occasion,  were  as  follows : 

The  worth  or  exchangeable  value  of  gold  is  as  uncer- 
tain as  other  products  of  human  labor,  such  as  wheat  or  cot- 
ton. The  exchangeable  value  of  anything  depends  on  its 
convertibility  into  something  else,  that  has  value  at  the  option 
of  the  individual.  This  rule  applies  to  paper  money  as  to 
5 


66  COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

anything  else.  But  how  shall  Government  give  an  exchange- 
able value  to  a  paper  currency  ?  Can  it  be  done  by  a  stand- 
ard, which  is  beyond  its  control  and  which  naturally  fluctu- 
ates, while  the  sign  of  exchange,  indicated  by  the  paper,  re- 
mains the  same  ? 

This  is  the  unsound  theory  which  possesses  the  minds 
of  our  people  and  of  our  politicians. 

We  must  cut  loose  from  this  unreasonable  theory,  or  we 
shall  be  subject,  for  all  time,  to  these  periodic  disturbances 
of  our  currency,  which  bring  such  wide-spread  ruin  and  dis- 
tress to  our  commercial  industries,  and  work,  on  the  part  of 
the  Government,  positive  and  cruel  injustice.  The  remedy 
seems  to  me  to  be  very  plain. 

FIRST. — We  must  put  this  whole  power  of  coining  money 
or  issuing  currency,  "  where,"  as  Thomas  Jefferson  says,  "  by 
the  Constitution,  it  properly  belongs" — entirely  in  the  hands 
of  our  Government.  That  Government  is  a  Kepublic ;  hence 
it  is  under  the  control  of  the  people.  Corporations  and 
States  have  hitherto,  in  some  form  or  other,  divided  this 
power  with  the  Government.  Hence  come  the  embarrass- 
ments and  the  fluctuations,  as  may  be  easily  shown. 

But  now  we  must  trust  our  Government  with  this  whole 
function  of  providing  the  standards  and  measures  of  ex- 
change, as  we  trust  it  with  the  weights  and  measures  of 
trade.  So  far  from  putting  the  people  in  the  power  of  our 
Government  and  at  the  caprice  of  parties  in  power,  I  con- 
tend it  will  bring  the  Government  more  under  control  of 
the  people  and  give  a  check  to  mere  party  rule.  For  the 
more  stake  the  people  have  in  the  wisdom  and  honesty  of 
the  Government,  the  more  watchful  and  firm  they  will  be 
in  its  control. 

SECONDLY. — We  must  require  the  Government  to  make 
this  currency,  at  all  times,  and,  at  the  option  of  the  individ- 
ual, convertible.  But  the  currency  must  be  convertible  into 
something,  over  which  the  Government  has  entire  control, 
and  to  which  it  can  give  a  definite  as  well  as  a  permanent 
value.  This  is  its  own  interest-bearing  bonds.  These  are, 


COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY.  67 

in  fact,  a  mortgage  upon  the  embodied  wealth  of  the  whole 
country.  The  reality  of  their  value  is  as  sound  and  as  per- 
manent as  the  Government  itself,  and  the  degree  of  their 
value  can  be  determined  exactly  by  the  rate  of  interest  the 
Government  may  think  proper  to  fix. 

If  I  should  speak  to  you  for  hours  on  this  subject,  I  could 
only  enlarge  upon  the  advantages  of  such  a  system.  Let 
the  National  Government  issue  paper  money,  whose  volume 
shall  be  regulated — in  exact  accordance  with  the  needs  of 
Commerce — by  its  interchangeability,  at  holder's  option, 
with  Government  bonds,  bearing  an  equitable  rate  of  inter- 
est. Let  the  Government  disburse  this  money  only  in  pay- 
ment of  its  indebtedness,  and  make  it  receivable  for  taxes 
and  imposts  of  every  kind.  Depend  upon  it,  under  this  sys- 
tem, your  taxes  would  be  greatly  reduced,  business  would 
revive  and  hereafter  remain  free  from  exposure  to  disastrous 
panics." 


OPEN  LETTER  TO  THE  CANDIDATES  FOR  THE  PRESIDENCY, 
NOMINATED  BY  THE  REPUBLICAN  AND  DEMOCRATIC  PAR- 
TIES, IN  CONVENTION  ASSEMBLED. 

NEW  YORK,  July  25, 1876. 
lion.  R.  B.  Hayes  and  Hon.  Samuel  J.  Tilden. 

GENTLEMEN — I  find  myself  impelled  by  an  irresistible 
anxiety  for  my  country ;  by  the  palpable  facts  of  distress 
and  suffering,  that  surround  me,  and  which,  I  am  compelled 
to  know,  pervade  the  families  of  the  great  mass  of  our  peo- 
ple ;  by  the  earnest  calls,  that  have  been  made  to  me  from 
all  parts  of  this  great  country ;  and  especially,  by  the  solemn 
and  deliberate  act  of  an  earnest  and  intelligent  body  of  my 
fellow-citizens,  in  convention  assembled,  who,  setting  forth 
clearly  their  convictions  as  to  the  real  cause  of  this  wide- 
spread distress  among  the  masses  of  our  countrymen,  have 
called  upon  me  to  represent  those  convictions,  and  nomi- 
nated me  as  their  chief  executive  to  carry  them  out ; — by 
all  these  considerations  I  feel  called  upon  to  address  a  few 


68  COIN  AND  PAPER   CUEKENCY. 

words  to  yon,  who  now  hold  the  nominations  of  the  two 
great  organized  political  parties  in  this  country  for  the  high- 
est position  of  responsibility  as  to  the  future  happiness  and 
prosperity  of  this  great  people. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  attribute  any  want  of  patriotism,  or 
any  unworthy  motive  to  your  honorable  selves,  or  to  the 
leaders  of  those  Conventions,  which  have  nominated  you 
both,  respectively,  to  the  high  office  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States.  But  the  imminent  question  of  the  day,  that 
which  touches  the  cause  of  the  present  financial  ruin  and 
suffering  of  so  many,  is  one  of  such  palpable  facts  and  simple 
deductions  therefrom,  that  I  must  think  there  is  some  mis- 
take in  the  radical  principle,  by  which  these  facts  are  viewed 
by  you  and  the  great  parties,  which  you  represent.  I  find 
in  the  platforms  of  the  conventions  of  the  two  great  parties 
no  adequate  expression,  either  of  the  facts,  the  causes,  or 
the  principles,  that  underlie  the  present  great  distress  of  our 
nation,  when  thousands  of  honest,  industrious  people  are 
filled  with  anxiety  for  the  bread  of  their  families,  or  are 
suffering  already  from  an  inadequate  supply.  This  seems 
to  me  the  great  and  paramount  question  of  the  day,  to  which 
our  chief  thought  and  most  efficient  action  should  be  di- 
rected, and  before  which  all  other  questions  should  sink  into 
insignificance. 

What  is  the  cause  of  this  wide-spread  ruin  and  present 
distress  ?  and  what  is  the  immediate  remedy  ? 

A  few  facts  of  history  and  of  public  record  will  show 
this.  According  to  Spaulding's  "  Financial  History  of  the 
War,"  (p.  201)  the  public  debt  of  the  United  States  stood  on 
the  books  of  the  Treasury,  October  1, 1865,  at  a  total  of  $2,- 
808,549,437.  According  to  the  same  author,  who  is  a  strong 
advocate  for  specie  payments ;  (page  10,  Introduction)  out 
of  this  debt  in  1864,  the  inflating  paper  issues,  outstand- 
ing, were  over  $1,100,000,000— and  gold  reached  its  high- 
est quotation,  285. 

Now,  be  it  remembered  that,  although  a  few  money- 
changers, speculators  and  importers  were  willing  to  give 


COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUKKENCY.  69 

$2.85  of  paper  for  one  dollar  in  gold,  yet  the  people  were 
using  this  paper  to  buy  flour  and  exchange  their  commodi- 
ties at  prices,  that  were  far  less  than  this  inflated  price  of 
gold. 

Gold  was  no  longer  the  standard  of  exchange,  except  in 
foreign  commodities,  where  balances  had  to  be  paid  in  gold. 
The  internal  trade,  commerce  and  industries  of  the  country 
were  steadily  increasing,  and  never  before  so  flourishing  as 
during  the  time  of  this  famine  for  gold.  In  an  evil  hour, 
it  became  the  policy  of  this  Government  to  reduce  all  our 
paper  currency  to  the  standard  and  par  value  of  gold.  This 
was  attempted  by  the  withdrawal  of  the  paper  currency  as 
fast  as  practicable,  and  by  absorbing  the  same,  by  an  arbi- 
trary law,  into  a  debt  for  so  much  gold  as  the  face  of  the 
paper,  in  the  shape  of  gold  bonds,  bearing  the  yearly  inter- 
est of  6  per  cent,  in  gold !  In  the  course  of  less  than  eight 
years  this  change  was  effected,  and  the  people's  money  and 
currency  of  all  kinds  were  reduced  subsequently  from  $2,- 
192,395,527,  as  represented  on  the  Treasurer's  books  on 
September  1, 1865,  to  the  sum  of  §631,488,676  on  the  1st  of 
November,  1873,  making  a  reduction  of  the  currency  in  eight 
years  of  §1,561,906,851 !  (See  Congressional  Record,  March 
31,  1874,  speech  of  John  M.  Bright  of  Tennessee.)  This 
brought  on  the  panic  of  1873  and  all  our  present  financial 
troubles.  Although  a  part  of  this  vast  sum  was  a  kind  of 
currency,  that  drew  interest,  and,  therefore,  partook  also  of 
the  nature  of  an  investment,  yet,  as  Mr.  Maynard,  Chair- 
man of  the  Committee  of  Banking  and  Currency,  said  from 
his  seat  in  Congress  on  the  occasion  of  Mr.  Bright's  speech, 
"  those  issues  were  engraved  and  prepared  in  a  form  to  cir- 
culate as  money,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  did  so  circulate, 
until  either  they  were  funded  or  the  interest  accumulated 
so  as  to  make  them  superior  to  the  ordinary  class  of  cur- 
rency." But  this  stupendous  decrease  in  the  people's  money 
— the  very  tools  of  their  trades  and  enterprises  of  every  de- 
scription, the  use  of  which  they  had  fairly  earned  by  the 
blood  and  sacrifices  of  a  great  war,  and  the  beneficial  effects 


70  COI1ST  AND.  PAPER   CUEEENCY. 

of  which  were  proved  by  the  great  activity  in  business  and 
trade,  which  it  engendered  as  long  as  it  lasted — this  great 
reduction  in  the  money  of  the  people  was  made  by  methods 
equally  unjust,  as  they  were  disastrous  to  the  prosperity  of 
the  country. 

This  paper  currency  was  absorbed  by  interest-bearing  gold 
bonds,  which  were  bought  by  the  paper,  which  in  its  turn 
had  been  purchased  by  gold  at  40,  50  and  60  per  cent, 
discount;  thus  turning  the  debt  of  the  country  to  one  of 
twice  its  value  in  paper,  and  paying  for  the  gold  bonds 
at  half  their  value  in  paper.  This  was  done  at  a  time, 
when  this  paper  currency  was  doing  the  nation  all  the  good, 
that  so  much  gold  could  do  for  our  domestic  prosperity  and 
trade.  The  people  were  building  up  the  country  with  a 
rapidity  unexampled  before,  with  this  paper,  which,  if  it 
had  been  fully  honored  by  the  Government,  that  issued 
it,  and  received  for  all  imports,  duties  and  debts,  and 
allowed  to  be  exchanged  at  par  for  bonds  at  an  equitable 
rate  of  interest,  would  not  have  permitted  any  premium  on 
gold. 

These  are  the  facts.  The  panic  of  1873  and  all  the  conse- 
quent distress  of  the  industrial  classes  of  our  country,  and 
its  baffled  enterprise,  are  distinctly  due  to  the  contraction  of 
the  currency  to  this  enormous  extent  during  the  eight  years 
preceding  1873.  It  stopped  credit,  production  and  con- 
sumption, and  made  much  of  what  currency  was  left,  rush 
in  a  panic  to  the  head  money-centres — as  the  blood  in  an 
apoplectic  fit  rushes  to  the  head — where  this  money  is  now 
vainly  seeking  investment  in  first-class  security  at  two  per 
cent. ;  while  the  country  at  large  is  palsied  in  its  enterprises 
and  industries  for  want  of  this  very  currency.  And  what 
was  all  this  done  for  ?  To  change  the  debt  of  the  country 
without  reducing  its  real  amount  from  a  shape  beneficial  to 
the  people,  and  incorporated  as  an  integral  part  of  the  very 
life-blood  of  all  their  rising  industries  and  their  growing 
trade — this  paper  currency  was  turned,  almost  with  the  sud- 
denness of  a  conjuration,  and  by  the  forms  of  an  arbitrary 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  71 

construction  of  law,  into  another  shape,  twice  in  amount  as 
measured  by  the  same  paper,  and  taxing  the  people  with 
interest  on  it  in  gold,  to  the  amount  of  $94,684,269  per 
year,  (see  statement  of  the  public  debt,  June,  18T6.) 

Most  of  this  interest  is  now  paid  to  foreign  bondholders, 
alien  to  our  institutions  and  uninterested  in  our  prosperity, 
except  to  keep  up  our  ability  and  willingness  to  bear  taxation. 

And  what  is  the  specious  reason  for  this  change  ?  "To 
return  to  specie  payments  !  " 

What  can  this  policy  result  in  but  a  further  distress  and 
impoverishment  of  this  people,  and  the  building  up  of  the 
interests  of  a  class,  whose  business  it  is  to  invest  or  to  lend 
money,  and  whose  policy  will  be  to  get  the  highest  rate  of 
interest  ?  We  may  concede  all,  that  is  claimed  of  the  neces- 
sity of  specie  payments,  and  our  currency  being  made  on  a 
par  with  gold.  But  this  disastrous  and  ill-judged  method  of 
reaching  specie  payments,  by  the  past  and  present  contrac- 
tion of  our  currency,  is  very  unjust  and  cruel  to  our  people ; 
for  it  shrunk  the  value  of  all  property,  so  that  it  could  not 
be  sold,  or  mortgages  obtained  on  it  for  more  than  one-half 
the  amount  the  same  property  would  have  brought  three 
years  previous,  and  reduced  the  wages  of  labor  to  the  same 
degree.  This  return  to  specie  payments  may  be  made  with- 
out such  injury,  by  honoring  the  currency  in  every  way  ;  by 
making  it  exclusively  the  money  as  well  as  the  legal  tender 
of  the  country  ;  by  receiving  it  for  all  forms  of  taxes,  duties, 
debts  to  Government,  as  wrell  as  the  payment  of  all  private 
debts ;  by  establishing  its  value  on  a  firm  basis,  at  a  fixed  and 
equitable  rate  of  interest,  which  it  may  always  find  in  an 
interconvertible  bond ;  and  by  determining  the  volume  of 
the  currency,  where  the  unobstructed  laws  of  the  internal 
trade  aifd  industry  of  this  country  may  require  it  to  be, 
under  the  free  use  of  the  interconvertible  bond.  This  great 
national  debt  ought  to  be  held  as  a  great  trust  by  the  Govern- 
ment of  this  people,  and  made  the  receptacle  of  all  the  trust 
funds,  and  the  savings  of  all  the  poor  among  our  own  people. 
It  should  be  an  investment  put  within  the  reach  of  our  own 


72  COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

people,  instead  of  being  sent  abroad  to  swell  the  coffers  of 
the  rich  in  other  countries. 

If  the  Government,  after  the  war  of  Rebellion,  had  been 
as  anxious  to  heal  the  wounds,  which  that  unhappy  war 
created,  to  alleviate  the  poverty,  which  it  brought  on  a  large 
section  of  our  country,  to  reinstate  the  broken  industries 
arid  enterprises  of  our  whole  people,  as  it  had  been  to  carry 
that  war  vigorously,  at  any  cost,  on  to  victory,  the  Govern- 
ment would  have  seen,  that  peace  had  its  demands  as  well 
as  war.  If  a  Government  is  bound  to  protect  the  people 
from  the  aggressions  of  war,  it  is  also  bound  to  save  it  from 
commercial  distress  and  the  sorrows  of  a  laboring  population 
without  work.  The  Government  might  now  free  hundreds 
of  thousands  from  imminent  want,  and  set  the  wheels  of 
trade  again  in  motion  by  building  the  two  great  railroads 
across  the  continent  at  the  southwest  and  northwest  of  the 
country,  that  private  enterprise  has  already  commenced,  but 
cannot  complete,  for  want  of  capital.  The  legal  tender  of 
a  solvent  country  like  this  cannot  be  called  a  debt  in  any 
proper  sense  of  the  word.  It  is  money  and  measures  the 
exchangeble  value  of  all  property,  gold  included.  All  must 
see  that  the  currency,  paid  out  by  the  Government  for  value 
received,  became  the  people's  money,  over  which  the  Govern- 
ment lost  all  control,  except  to  tax  it  as  all  other  property 
to  meet  the  wants  of  Government.  This  amount  of  money 
even  now  may  be  given  back  to  the  people  in  works  of  great 
national  importance,  like  that  of  a  Northern  and  Southern 
Pacific  Railroad,  that  would  to-day  be  worth  their  cost,  in 
aiding  to  put  down  the  Indian  wars,  that  now  threaten  the 
frontier  of  our  country.  What  is  a  Government  good  for, 
if  in  such  a  country  as  this,  with  all  its  material  resources 
and  vast  extent,  it  cannot  prevent  a  large  part  of  its  people 
from  the  distress  of  want  of  work  and  bread  ?  This  seems 
to  me  the  first  duty  of  Government. 

Sorry  am  I  to  see,  and  I  say  it  without  any  reproach  cast 
upon  the  integrity  of  those  concerned,  that  in  neither  of  the 
platforms  of  the  political  parties,  that  represent  the  go- 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUKKENCY.  73 

verning  intelligence  and  wealth  of  this  country,  is  this  great 
question  of  finance  either  discussed  or  recognized  in  its  prin- 
ciples, or  bearings  upon  the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  this 
people — except  in  a  way,  that  seems  to  me  adverse  to  both. 

I  have,  therefore,  consented  with  great  reluctance  to  go 
before  the  people — not  for  the  strife  of  office,  not  for  the 
petty  triumphs  of  a  successful  candidate,  but  for  the  vindi- 
cation of  a  great  principle,  that  underlies  all  true  Republican 
or  Democratic  Institutions — namely,  that  the  interest  and 
happiness  of  the  whole  people  are  superior  to  the  demands 
or  interests  of  any  one  class  ;  that  in  the  neglect  or  defiance 
of  this  principle,  the  great  debt  of  this  people,  incurred  by 
a  war  to  save  the  life  of  this  nation,  has  been  administered 
too  much  by  the  advice,  and  in  the  interest  of  a  small  class, 
that  care  for  their  income,  but  cannot  look  out  for,  or  attend 
to  active  investments ;  hence,  they  prefer  the  bond  to  the 
currency ;  and  for  another  class,  who  desire  the  highest 
interest  for  the  smallest  investment ;  hence  they  prefer  gold 
to  a  paper  legal  tender ;  and  for  still  another  class,  who 
alien  to  our  institutions  and  country,  care  only  to  tax  its 
energies  and  wealth  for  the  highest  interest  they  can  draw 
for  an  immediate  investment  of  their  money.  But  these  are 
not  the  interests  of  the  people  of  this  country.  Neither 
honor  nor  justice  requires  such  administration  of  the  public 
debt  of  this  country. 

I  feel,  therefore,  constrained  by  every  principle  of  honor 
and  love  for  my  country,  to  come  forward  at  an  advanced 
age,  and  with  a  mind,  that  would  gladly  seek  repose,  after 
the  toils  of  a  long  and  laborious  life,  to  answer  the  call  of  a 
portion  of  my  countrymen,  to  try  these  issues  before  the 
people  of  the  whole  country ;  to  test  these  truths,  which  we 
hold  to  be  self  evident,  as  soon  as  they  are  honestly  examined, 
as  are  the  truths  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  One 
of  the  chief  of  these  truths  is  that,  as  all  rightful  Govern- 
ments are  made  for  the  people  and  by  the  people,  they  must 
be  administered  with  a  parental  care  in  the  interests  of  the 
whole  people,  and  not  for  a  class.  No  single  interest 


74  COIN  AND   PAPEE  CUEEENCY. 

touches  the  domestic  comfort  and  prosperity  of  the  people 
as  this  one  of  the  currency  ;  and  in  the  present  condition  of 
the  country,  none  is  of  so  much  immediate  importance,  or 
calls  for  more  immediate  solution.  To  put  off  this  question, 
therefore,  with  vague  expressions  of  reform,  and  the  de- 
sirableness of  specie  payments,  is  to  ignore  the  ruling  inter- 
est of  the  hour.  It  is  to  surrender  the  people  to  their  suf- 
ferings without  any  promise  of  remedy. 

I  appeal,  therefore,  from  those,  who  seem  insensible  to 
the  cry  of  the  people,  to  the  people  themselves.  I  appeal 
from  the  political  parties,  organized  to  control  the  Govern- 
ment and  distribute  the  offices  and  emoluments  of  office,  to 
the  great  industrial  classes,  who  organized  to  protect  their 
interests  and  obtain  some  recognition  of  their  rights  from 
the  Government  of  the  country.  Let  them  substitute 
cooperation  for  strikes,  and  unite  to  save  themselves  and  the 
country  from  the  present  disaster  and  distress  to  all  the  in- 
dustrial classes.  Let  no  man  think  of  the  'bullet,  while  he 
has  the  ballot  in  his  hand.  It  needs  but  the  use  of  that 
simple  instrument  of  political  power  to  rectify  all  our  dis- 
contents and  social  evils. 

Let  us  have  our  national  currency  duly  honored  ;  let  us 
take  the  testimony  of  the  nation's  experience,  and  that  of 
other  countries,  as  to  what  such  a  currency  can  do  for  our 
prosperity ;  let  the  gold  par  be  reached  by  rendering  our 
currency  of  higher  and  indispensable  uses,  as  now  exempli- 
fied in  France,  and  not  by  contracting  its  amount ;  and  let 
its  volume  and  its  value  be  determined  by  the  interconver- 
tible bond,  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  wants  of  the  people, 
and  governed  by  all  the  forms  and  sanctities  of  law ;  and 
not  surrender  the  currency  to  the  ever-changing  basis  of  a 
commodity  like  gold — then  we  shall  have  peace  on  this  ques- 
tion. Justice  will  be  established,  and  the  general  welfare 
promoted  ;  prosperity,  again,  will  revisit  us,  and  we  shall 
vindicate  the  wisdom  and  superiority  of  our  free  institutions 
before  the  world. 

France,  with  her  600,000,000  of  legal  paper,  has  kept 


COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  75 

her  industries  profitably  employed  by  keeping  her  paper  re- 
ceivable for  all  forms  of  taxes,  duties  and  debts,  etc.    .    .    . 

The  time  has  come,  when  the  claims  of  a  common  human- 
ity and  all  that  can  move  the  manhood  of  an  American  citi- 
zen must  unite  in  a  demand  for  an  act  of  common  justice, 
now  due  to  the  American  people,  who  have  saved  our  coun- 
try from  ruin,  and  will,  I  trust,  forever  protect  it.  The 
Constitution  has  made  it  the  first  and  most  important  duty 
of  Congress  "  to  establish  justice,  insure  domestic  tranquill- 
ity, provide  for  the  common  defense,  promote  the  general 
welfare  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and 
our  posterity}'1 

To  my  present  friends  I  need  not  say,  that  this  sacrifice  of 
peace  and  rest  is  like  the  surrender  of  what  remnant  of  life 
I  may  have.  But  to  the  country  at  large  I  will  say,  that  I 
am  willing  to  stand  in  the  place,  where  I  have  been  put  by 
the  judgment  of  an  intelligent  and  honest  portion  of  my 
countrymen,  to  stand  with  them  and  try  before  the  whole 
people  this  cause  of  tbe  people's  money,  and  the  true  finan- 
cial policy  of  this  Government. 

Most  respectfully  yours, 

PETER  COOPER. 


LETTER  ON  FINANCE. 

NEW  YORK,  August  21,  1876. 
Hon.  Moses  W.  Field,  Chairman,  etc.,  etc. : 

DEAR  SIR — I  must  beg  you  to  accept  the  warm  weather 
incident  to  this  season  of  the  year  (together  with  the  thought 
which  forces  itself  upon  my  mind,  that  my  presence  might 
possibly  cause  some  persons — who  do  not  know  me — to  think, 
that  I  was  electioneering)  as  a  sufficient  apology  for  not  ac- 
cepting your  kind  invitation  to  join  our  friends  in  the  Con- 
vention at  Chicago  on  Wednesday  next. 

I  shall  be  with  you,  however,  in  spirit,  and  also  by  the 
presentation  of  thousands  of  pamphlets,  which  give  my  views 
on  the  most  important  issues  of  the  day,  and  some  of  the 


76  COIN   AND   PAPEE   CURRENCY. 

errors  of  public  administration,  to  which  both  the  Repub- 
lican and  Democratic  parties  neglect  to  give  attention. 

I  waited  long  and  with,  I  trust,  a  fair  degree  of  patience, 
for  Governor  Tilden's  letter  of  acceptance,  entertaining  the 
hope,  that  I  might  find  sufficient  ground  for  retiring  from 
the  field  as  a  candidate,  nominated  for  the  same  office.  But 
in  this  I  was  disappointed,  as  he  indicates  a  determination, 
similar  to  that  expressed  by  Governor  Hayes  in  his  letter  of 
acceptance,  to  the  effect  that,  if  successful  in  the  canvass,  "  no 
step  backward  "  from  the  wrong  policy,  pursued  by  the  Gov- 
ernment relative  to  finance,  will  be  taken,  notwithstanding  it 
has  ruined  untold  thousands  and  brought  sore  distress  upon 
honest  toilers  throughout  the  land,  etc.  .  .  . 

It  is  extremely  difficult  to  frame  an  apology  for  the  course 
of  financial  legislation,  that  has  been  adopted  by  the  Govern- 
ment of  our  country,  and  is  still  insisted  on  by  both  polit- 
ical parties.  I  find,  on  a  close  examination,  that  it  is  just 
such  a  policy  as  men  and  nations  would  advise,  who  have  a 
direct  and  immediate  interest  to  mislead  and  deceive  us. 

The  legislation  of  our  country,  on  this  subject  of  finance, 
has  been  nearly  identical  with  that,  adopted  by  Great  Britain 
during  and  after  her  Napoleonic  wars,  and  is  attended  with 
similar  results.  The  English  Government  caused  a  suspen- 
sion of  specie  payments  for  more  than  twenty  years.  Those 
years  of  suspension  proved  to  be  the  years  of  England's 
greatest  prosperity. 

But  England,  like  our  own  country,  in  an  evil  hour,  un- 
dertook to  enforce  specie  payments  by  law.  This  shrunk 
the  values,  as  Sir  Archibald  Alison  says,  "  some  fifty  per 
centum,  and  caused  a  wide-spread  wretchedness  and  ruin  " 
over  that  country. 

•  A  similar  policy  has  paralyzed  all  our  industries,  and  has 
brought  suffering  to  millions  of  the  American  people  ;  and 
this  must  continue  as  long  as  the  present  contraction  of  the 
currency  is  allowed  to  go  on. 

I  here  repeat  my  belief,  that  prosperity  will  never  again 
bless  our  glorious  country,  until  justice  is  established,  by  giv- 


COIX  AND  PAPEE  CTJEEENCY.  77 

ing  back  to  the  people  a  sufficient  volume  of  currency,  with 
which  to  transact  business.  This  can  only  be  assured  by  the 
use  of,  national  paper  money  in  defraying  all  proper  expenses 
of  the  Government. 

When  our  Government  has  secured  to  the  people  one  kind 
of  paper  money,  receivable  for  all  forms  of  taxes,  duties 
and  debts,  and  interconvertible  with  national  bonds,  bearing 
an  equitable  rate  of  interest — when  such  an  inestimable 
blessing  has  been  secured  to  my  beloved  country,  I  shall  be 
able  to  say,  with  one  of  old,  "  Lord,  now  let  test  thou  thy 
servant  depart  in  peace,"  for  I  have  seen  the  salvation  of  my 
country. 

Yery  respectfully  yours, 

PETER  COOPER. 


ADDRESS  AT  COOPER  INSTITUTE,  OCTOBER  19, 1876. 

Mr.  President,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : 

We  have  met,  my  friends,  to  call  and  fix  attention  on  one 
of  the  most  important  subjects,  that  has  ever  claimed  the 
attention  of  the  American  people. 

We,  the  Independent  Party,  hold  it  as  an  established  fact, 
that  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  by  the  people  has 
made  the  coining  of  money,  and  regulating  the  value  there- 
of— in  connection  with  the  fixing  of  a  just  and  uniform 
system  of  weights  and  measures — the  first  and  most  import- 
ant duty,  enjoined  by  the  Constitution  on  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States.  All  must  see,  that  justice  could  not  be 
established,  and  the  general  welfare  of  the  people  could  not 
be  promoted,  without  making  the  money  measure  of  the 
country  as  uniform  and  as  unfluctuating,  in  its  measuring 
power,  as  the  yard,  the  pound,  or  the  bushel  measure.  All 
must  see  how  utterly  impossible  it  would  be  for  our  Govern- 
ment to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations,  and  among 
the  several  States,  without  a  uniform  system  of  money, 
weights  and  measures. 


78  COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

Our  Independent  Party  are  compelled  to  believe,  with 
Thomas  Jefferson,  that  the  time  has  come,  when  "bank 
paper  must  be  suppressed,  and  the  circulating  medium  must 
be  restored  to  the  nation  to  whom  it  belongs." 

In  England  the  suspension  of  specie  payment  for  some 
twenty-five  years,  during  her  Napoleonic  wars,  proved  to  be 
a  great  blessing,  and  made  them  the  years  of  the  greatest 
prosperity,  known  in  the  history  of  that  country.  England's 
attempt  to  return  to  specie  payments  "  brought  with  it,"  as 
Sir  Archibald  Alison  says,  "  a  greater  amount  of  loss  and 
suffering,  than  had  ever  before  been  brought  on  that  country 
by  all  the  wars,  pestilence  and  famine,  that  had  ever  afflicted 
their  land." 

The  paralyzed  condition  of  the  industries  of  our  country 
has  resulted  from  the  adoption  of  a  similar  effort  to  contract 
the  currency  of  the  country,  in  order  to  secure  a  promise 
from  local  banks,  that  they  would  pay  specie  on  demand. 
Thus  far  our  Government  seems  to  have  disregarded  the 
warning  of  Sir  Archibald  Alison,  who  said,  that  he  feared 
America  might  adopt  the  unfortunate  policy,  which  had 
brought  such  wretchedness  and  ruin  on  the  people  of  Eng- 
land through  an  unwise  attempt  to  enforce  specie  payments 
on  a  people,  that  had  been  compelled  to  use  a  paper  cur- 
rency for  more  than  twenty  years.  Our  Government  has, 
not  only  disregarded  the  warnings  of  Sir  Archibald  Alison, 
and  all  the  history  and  experience  of  the  past,  but  it  has 
adopted  a  policy,  such  as  we  are  compelled  to  believe  has 
been  pressed  on  us  by  men  and  nations,  who  have  a  direct 
interest  to  mislead  and  deceive  us. 

My  views  on  this  whole  subject  have  been  so  fully  set 
forth  by  the  pamphlets  and  newspapers  have  spread  broad- 
cast over  the  country,  that  I  will  not  detain  you  longer  from 
the  pleasure  we  shall  receive  by  listening  to  our  friends, 
who  will  address  us. 

I  will  only  add,  that  it  is  greatly  to  be  regretted,  that  our 
Government  has  not  legislated  for  our  country  in  accordance 
with  the  direct  advice  of  Franklin,  Jefferson,  Calhoun  and 


COIN   AND   PAPER   CUEEENCY.  79 

others  like  them.  If  their  warning  voice  had  been  heeded 
by  our  Government,  our  country  would  have  been  blessed, 
like  France,  with  a  sufficient  volume  of  gold,  silver  and 
paper  currency,  made  equally  receivable  by  the  Government 
and  people  for  all  forms  of  taxes,  duties  and  debts.  Na- 
tional paper  money  should  have  remained  equal  to  the 
amount,  actually  found  in  circulation  at  the  close  of  the  war. 
That  amount  had  become  the  people's  money,  and  could  not 
be  taken  from  them  without  a  violation  of  that  clause  of  the 
Constitution,  which  makes  it  the  positive  duty  of  Congress 
to  establish  justice,  by  every  act  of  legislation,  as  the  only 
possible  means,  by  which  the  general  welfare  can  be  effectu- 
ally promoted. 

One  thing  is  certain,  that  the  national  debts  can  never  be 
paid  by  a  governmental  policy,  that  shrinks  the  currency, 
destroys  values,  paralyzes  industry,  enforces  idleness,  and 
brings  wretchedness  and  ruin  to  the  homes  of  millions  of 
the  American  people.  It  is  equally  true,  that  Americans  can 
never  buy  anything  cheap  from  foreign  countries,  that  must 
be  bought  at  the  expense  of  leaving  our  own  good  raw  ma- 
terials unused,  and  our  own  labor  unemployed.  It  should 
be  remembered,  that  neither  gold,  silver,  copper,  nickel  or 
paper  are  money  without  the  stamp  of  the  Government 
upon  it.  The  Constitution  has  made  it  the  duty  of  Congress 
to  coin  the  money  of  our  country  and  regulate  the  value 
thereof,  and  fix  a  standard  of  weights  and  measures,  as  the 
only  possible  means,  by  which  commerce  can  be  regulated 
between  foreign  nations  and  among  the  several  States. 

PETER  COOPER. 


INTERVIEW  WITH  A  HERALD  REPORTER. 

REPORTER — Mr.  Cooper,  what  do  you  think  of  the  late 
letter  of  Mr.  Reverdy  Johnson,  on  the  subject  of  the  cur- 
rency ? 

Mr.  COOPER — I  think,  that  Mr.  Johnson  has  there  given 


80  COIN"  AND   PAPEE   CTJKKENCY. 

some  very  wholesome  truths,  and  for  a  man  of  his  intelli- 
gence, he  has  made  some  remarkable  mistakes.  He  says 
truly,  that  "  the  question  of  currency  is  now  the  most  im- 
portant one  before  the  country.  It  rises,  or  should  rise,  far 
above  mere  party  contests." 

He  adds,  with  great  propriety,  that  "the  subject  of  cur- 
rency affects  the  permanent  welfare  of  every  citizen — the 
prosperity  of  the  country,  and  the  reputation  of  the  Gov- 
ernment." 

He  then  adds,  that  "it  must  be  obvious  to  every  reflect- 
ing mind,  that  a  currency  ought  to  be  as  far  removed  from 
fluctuations  of  value  as  possible." 

I  believe,  that  Mr.  Johnson  is  unquestionably  right  in  say- 
ing that,  "  with  a  currency,  subject  at  times  to  a  depreciation 
and  at  times  to  appreciation,  the  consequences  can  but  be  in- 
jurious ;  and  the  extent  of  injury  will  be  in  proportion  to 
the  changes  of  value." 

Mr.  Johnson  then  states,  what  I  believe  to  be  an  entire 
mistake,  that  "  the  experience  of  the  world  has  long  since 
demonstrated  that  gold  and  silver  alone  constitute  a  safe 
currency." 

As  to  what  control  the  Government  has  over  money,  this 
will  find  its  best  answer  in  the  language  of  the  Constitution, 
where  it  says,  that  "  CONGRESS  SHALL  HAVE  POWER  TO  LAY 
AND  COLLECT  TAXES, — to  borrow  money,  to  regulate  com- 
merce,— to  coin  money  and  regulate  the  value  thereof,"  a 
most  important  function,  and  "  to  make  all  laws  which  are 
necessary  and  proper  for  carrying  into  execution  the  fore- 
going powers,  and  all  other  powers,  vested  by  the  Con- 
stitution in  the  Government  of  the  United  States."  These 
are  necessary  to  "  establish  justice  and  promote  the  welfare 
of  the  nation." 

KEP. — But  what  are  your  views,  Mr.  Cooper,  on  this 
question  of  currency,  in  relation  to  the  Government  at  the 
present  time  ? 

Mr.  C. — I  think  the  currency  question  has  been  managed 
by  the  Government  very  much  in  the  interests  of  the  mon- 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CUKKENCY.  81 

eyed  classes,  and  very  poorly  in  the  interests  of  the  people. 
Let  us  look  at  some  of  the  facts. 

In  the  year  1860,  a  civil  war  broke  out  in  this  country, 
which  threatened  the  integrity  and  life  of  this  nation.  At 
this  time,  the  expenses  of  the  Government  increased  very 
largely  over  its  current  expenses  in  time  of  peace. 

In  fact,  it  became  necessary  for  the  Government  to  bor- 
row money  and  place  a  large  debt  on  the  shoulders  of  pos- 
terity, in  order  to  transmit  unimpaired  the  priceless  boon  of 
free  institutions,  and  a  powerful  and  self -protecting  Repub- 
lic of  States.  Now,  a  nation  is  not  like  a  private  individual, 
who,  if  he  wants  money,  must  go  and  borrow  it  of  some  one 
else,  because  he  has  no  resource  of  his  own,  from  which 
money  can  come,  but  only  some  security,  which  he  may  give, 
that  the  money  will  be  returned.  A  nation  has  always  in- 
definite resources,  on  which  to  draw,  and  yet  can  give  no 
LEGAL  security  for  the  payment  of  its  obligations.  Money 
itself  is  a  creature  of  law,  and  the  sovereign  prerogative  of 
the  State.  The  Government  can  make  anything  a  legal  tender, 
and  it  is  only  a  question  of  expediency  what  it  shall  make. 
But  it  can  give  no  legal  security  for  payment  of  its  debts ;  be- 
cause a  sovereign  State  cannot  be  sued,  nor  can  you  replevin 
on  its  property,  except  by  war.  To  be  sure,  a  nation  may  bor- 
row as  a  private  individual  from  another,  or  from  a  corpora- 
tion ;  but  in  doing  so,  it  puts  itself  in  a  false  position,  and 
makes  itself  subject  to  the  lender,  as  in  any  other  debtor, 
to  the  extent  of  his  debt — except  that  the  creditor  has  no 
other  resource  for  collection  BUT  TO  TAKE  ENTIRE  CONTROL  or 
THAT  GOVERNMENT,  as  respects  its  financial  policy.  Therefore, 
the  people  and  their  interests  may  be  shoved  aside,  for  they 
become  antagonistic  to  the  class,  which  are  the  creditors,  who 
naturally  desire  to  make  their  loans  at  the  least  cost  and  the 
highest  interest.  But,  if  the  people  themselves,  in  their 
solid  interests  and  unity,  as  represented  by  a  Republican 
Government,  were  both  the  debtors  and  creditors  of  all  the 
public  debt,  then  there  would  be  no  antagonism  between  the 

debtors  and  creditors. 
6 


82          COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

REP. — But  do  you  mean  to  say,  Mr.  Cooper,  that  a  Gov- 
ernment has  no  need,  and  should  never  borrow  from  indi- 
viduals and  corporations  ? 

Mr.  C. — /  think,  that  a  Republic  like  ours,  with  its  forty 
millions,  with  its  enormous  extent  of  unoccupied  land,  its 
wonderful  resources,  and  its  enterprising  people — equally 
marvelous  for  their  growth  and  the  increase  of  their  wealth 
within  the  century — has  no  need  to  borrow  from  anybody. 
Why  should  this  people  borrow,  as  a  private  debtor?  If,  in 
their  sovereign  capacity  through  the  Government  and  under 
constitutional  and  legal  forms,  they  can  lay  under  contribu- 
tion the  whole  property,  and  the  services  of  every  man,  in 
protecting  the  lives  and  property  of  all,  they  certainly  can 
issue  tokens  of  this  undoubted  fact,  in  the  shape  of  legal  ten- 
ders /  and  these  become,  by  this  act  of  sovereignty,  the  money 
of  the  country,  the  'measure  and  the  means  of  exchanges.  The 
people,  who  give  them,  in  their  sovereign  capacity,  must  take 
them  in  their  private  capacity,  and  again  receive  them,  in 
their  sovereign  capacity,  as  the  Government  for  taxes.  This 
makes  their  circulation  and  their  use.  But  the  significance 
of  these  paper  legal  tenders  is,  that  they  are  tokens  of  such 
service  or  material,  rendered  to  the  Government  /  and  they 
are  also  promises  to  render  an  equal  amount  of  money,  ser- 
vice, or  useful  material  in  exchange,  to  the  holder,  by  the 
Government. 

The  paid  functions  of  Government,  or  the  equivalent 
taxes  form  a  just  and  adequate  basis  for  the  redemption  of 
a  paper  currency,  and  furnish  a  better  legal  tender  than 
gold  or  silver,  for  the  domestic  purposes  of  trade,  if  prop- 
erly regulated  by  the  Government ;  hence,  I  would  demon- 
etize gold  and  silver,  except  as  mere  tokens  of  value,  and 
make  Government  paper,  exclusively,  the  legal  tender. 

This  is  a  very  important  proposition,  in  the  discussion  of 
national  finances^  and  demands  a  clear  explanation. 

1st.  If  a  private  note  of  hand  or  a  bank-note  is  good  in 
proportion  to  the  known  credit  and  resources  of  the  individ- 
ual or  the  bank,  so  is  that  of  the  Government,  and  in  a 


COIN   AND   PAPEK   CURRENCY.  83 

t 

superior  degree,  as  the  Government  has  a  larger  credit  and 
more  resources  than  an  individual  or  a  bank. 

2d.  An  individual  or  a  bank  pays  its  debts  by  means  of 
its  credits,  or  the  valid  claims  either  may  have  on  others  ; 
so  does  the  Government ;  and  the  valid  claims  of  Govern- 
ment are  all  represented  in  rightful  taxes,  imposed  for  its 
proper  functions  and  employments. 

Government,  on  one  side,  is  the  giver  of  sound  credit,  rep- 
resented by  its  paper ;  the  validity  and  redeeming  basis  of 
this  paper  is  in  the  fact,  that  the  community  is  indebted  to  the 
Government  in  the  shape  of  taxes  for  so  much  service  and 
material,  as  maybe  necessary  to  carry  on  its  proper  function, 
and  pay  its  officers  for  services,  rendered  to  the  public ;  this 
creates  an  obligation  on  the  part  of  the  public  to  receive 
Government  paper  for  value  received.  Thus  the  circula- 
tion is  complete.  As  the  creditors  of  an  individual  or  of  a 
bank  receive  its  paper  and  pass  it  to  debtors,  who  in  their 
turn  pay  their  debts  to  the  bank  with  its  own  paper,  so  the 
Government  puts  out  its  paper  for  service  and  labor,  and 
redeems  its  notes  by  the  taxes  due.  This  is  the  sort  of 
legal  tender  and  currency  we  need,  as  undoubted  repre- 
sentative for  value  received,  as  gold  or  silver.  Regulated  in 
volume  by  the  amount  of  taxation,  which  the  people  are 
willing  to  bear,  in  order  to  support  Government ;  for  not  a 
dollar  of  it  can  be  issued,  except  for  value  received,  and  un- 
der the  watchful  guard  of  the  whole  machinery  of  Govern- 
ment. Where,  then,  is  the  danger  of  inflation,  except  in 
time  of  war,  or  by  a  temporary  wresting  of  the  Government 
from  the  hands  of  the  people  ?  One  of  these  contingencies 
is  comparatively  rare,  and  not  without  its  compensations  in 
the  objects,  attained  by  the  war.  The  other  is  a  very  remote 
and  improbable  contingency  in  a' country  like  this — hardly 
worth  taking  into  account  in  this  argument. 

On  the  other  hand,  bank  paper  is  sure  to  be  inflated 
sooner  or  later,  without  compensation,  but  with  general  loss 
or  disaster.  For,  if  it  is  to  be  redeemed  by  specie,  the  paper 
cannot  be  kept  within  the  limits  of  redemption  and  satisfy 


84          COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 
t 

at  the  same  time  the  demand  for  credit.  If  a  part  of  it  be- 
comes irredeemable,  the  whole  of  it  becomes  irredeemable 
at  a  blow. 

But,  if  the  paper  merely  represents  credit,  it  is  the  real 
capital  and  claims  or  assets  of  the  bank,  which  must  sup- 
port that  credit ;  and  the  history  of  banking  clearly  shows, 
that  the  inevitable  tendency  is,  that  bank  circulation  gets  in 
advance  of  its  real  capital  or  assets  ;  because  the  assets  are 
sure  to  fall  greatly  in  the  market,  if  they  are  brought  quickly 
forward  to  pay  its  debts,  as  is  the  case  in  times  of  panic. 
The  sudden  curtailment  of  its  loans,  from  time  to  time,  can 
alone  keep  up  a  system  of  banks,  and  this  is  sure  to  bring 
on  ruin  and  panic  in  business.  Not  so  with  a  Government 
currency,  regulated  solely  by  Government  taxes  and  dues. 
It  must  be  comparatively  steady  and  unfluctuating  as  the 
taxes  ;  and  hence,  the  general  credits,  based  on  such  a  cur- 
rency, cannot  fluctuate  enough  to  produce  great  inflations,  in 
time  of  peace,  and  the  consequent  reactions  and  panics  in 
business. 

REP. — Why  not  ?  It  seems  to  me,  that  Government  paper 
may  be  subject  to  great  inflations,  as  well  as  bank  paper, 
and  the  expanded  credits,  that  arise  from  such  inflations, 
must  suffer  contraction,  sooner  or  later,  by  a  natural  law ; 
for  the  pay-day  must  come  at  last,  and  few,  who  are  eager 
to  borrow,  can  meet  the  payment.  Government  paper  may 
be  inflated  on  a  more  gigantic  scale  than  bank  paper,  as  our 
last  war  proved. 

ME.  C. — That  was  a  war  measure  and  was  justified  for  the 
same  reason  as  the  war.  But  the  mischief  did  not  arise 
from  the  expansion  of  the  currency,  which  sent  a  vivifying 
influence  throughout  all  our  industries,  and  produced  the 
most  prosperous  times  this  country  ever  had ;  but  it  was  the 
contraction  of  the  currency,  which  brought  the  distress  ;  and 
this  was  neither  necessary  nor  called  for  by  any  advantage 
accruing. 

The  eagerness,  with  which  our  currency  was  funded  by 
foreign  bondholders,  was  owing  to  the  fact,  that  our  Govern- 


COIN  AND   PAPEE  CUEEENOY.  85 

ment  gave  such  high  rates  of  interest,  as  compared  with 
other  Governments,  and  promised  both  principal  and  inter- 
est in  gold,  when  the  paper,  that  bought  the  bonds,  was  at 
forty  or  sixty  per  cent,  discount  on  the  gold.  Was  that 
patriotic  or  necessary  ?  To  pay  so  much  of  the  debt  of  the 
nation  before  it  was  due,  as  Mr.  McCullough  boasted  was 
his  object,  and  to  turn  so  large  a  part  of  the  currency,  which 
fed  the  industry  of  the  people  into  bonds,  which  taxed  that 
industry,  was  a  very  short-sighted  policy  for  the  Govern- 
ment to  pursue. 

REP. — But  how  is  the  Government  always  to  keep  its  paper 
issues,  in  time  of  peace,  on  a  par  with  the  standard,  adopted 
as  a  unit  of  value — so  much  weight  of  stiver  or  gold,  in  the 
coin  dollar  ?  This  standard  gives  meaning  to  the  stamp  on 
the  paper,  as  equivalent  to,  or  exchangeable  for,  so  much 
value,  as  the  number  of  dollars  stamped  on  the  paper, 
measured  by  the  standard  coin  dollar.  This  is  a  necessary 
starting-point  in  measuring  values,  as  a  certain  length  or  a 
certain  weight  is  to  the  yard-stick,  or  to  the  pound  weight. 

MR.  C. — That  is  very  true.  It  is  necessary  to  have  some 
substantial  and  recognized  standard  of  value  to  start  with,  in 
money,  whether  it  be  coin  or  currency.  This  standard,  how- 
ever, might  be  a  pound  of  cotton  of  a  certain  fineness,  or  a 
pound  of  tobacco  of  a  certain  quality,  as  far  as  giving  a 
standard  value  to  the  paper  was  concerned.  It  is  also  true, 
that  the  paper  must  have  some  exchangeable  value  as  money, 
as  measured  by  a  standard  ;  and  the  Government  cannot 
give  it  that  exchangeable  value,  in  any  quantity,  by  merely 
stamping  the  paper  as  worth  so  much.  What  we  want  is  a 
paper  money,  made  equal  in  exchangeable  value  to  gold  or 
silver  of  a  certain  standard. 

Now  the  Government  keeps  its  promise  to  pay  in  three 
ways  :  First,  by  accepting  these  paper  promises,  as  they  may 
be  called,  for  all  taxes  and  dues  to  the  Government.  Sec- 
ondly, by  compelling  every  individual  to  accept  them  in 
payment  of  all  debts.  And  finally,  by  redeeming  them  in 
that,  which  the  holder  of  the  currency  shall  accept  as  equiv 


86  COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY. 

alent  value,  the  Government  Bonds,  thus  distributing  bur- 
dens and  benefits  over  the  whole  country. 

REP. — But  this  is  only  compelling  individuals  to  accept 
one  token  of  debt  for  another.  How  is  the  public  debt  to 
be  paid  at  last,  and  how  shall  we  get  out  of  this  vortex  of 
promises  to  pay  ? 

Mr.  C. — In  one  sense,  there  is  no  need  to  get  out  of  this 
vortex ;  the  planets  move  in  a  vortex  •  the  whole  of  society^ 
and  the  universe,  as  far  as  we  see  it,  move  in  vortices.  This 
is  the  grand  law  of  motion  and  circulation.  But  circulation 
also  signifies  growth  and  ministers  to  it.  Parts  of  every  cir- 
culating medium  settle  down  to  something  solid,  which  makes 
a  part  of  the  organism,  keeps  up  its  integrity  and  adds 
to  its  growth.  The  circulating  medium  of  money  settles 
down,  at  last,  into  something  solid  in  interest  and  property, 
under  the  same  law  of  conversion,  that  makes  each  drop  of 
"blood  contribute  to  hone,  muscle,  or  other  organ  of  the  ~body. 
For  instance,  New  York  City  is  building  a  great  series  of 
piers  and  wharves  for  the  accornodation  of  its  present  and 
future  commerce  and  trade.  It  is  demonstrable,  that  these 
piers  and  wharves  will  pay  in  rents  to  the  city,  not  only  the 
interest,  but  the  principal  of  all  the  money  invested  in 
twenty  years.  The  city  issues  its  bonds  for  this  work,  which 
represent  a  certain  amount  of  interest  and  principal.  But 
the  city,  not  having  the  right  to  issue  money,  offers  its  bonds 
for  sale  to  the  banks,  or  to  private  individuals,  which  are 
henceforth  alienated  from  the  possession  of  the  city,  in  order 
to  get  the  money  or  currency  to  pay  for  labor  and  material 
in  this  public  work.  You  might  ask,  why  should  not  the 
city  keep  these  bonds  in  its  own  safes,  and  issue  the  money 
for  current  expenses  on  its  own  authority  and  credit  ?  I 
answer :  Because  that  would  be  an  act  of  too  great  a  local 
sovereignty — though  it  is  no  more  than  is  now  virtually  con- 
ceded to  local  banks.  Let  the  general  Government,  then, 
in  its  sovereignty,  make  such  a  currency,  so  based  and  se- 
cured, a  legal  tender.  Then,  when  this  work  is  done,  and 
begins  to  pay  to  the  city  rents,  let  the  income  be  applied  to 


COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  87 

the  extinguishment  of  the  bonds,  as  well  as  keeping  it  in 
repair.  This  is  what  I  mean  by  settling  down  a  circulating 
medium  or  currency  INTO  SOLID  MATERIAL  and  capital,  organ- 
ized into  permanent  use. 

This  makes  a  circulating  medium,  always  expanding,  and 
always  contracting  into  a  solid  form.  The  true  design  and 
highest  function  of  currency  and  credit  are  to  encourage  and 
stimulate  industry  and  enterprise  in  useful  forms,  and  to  pro- 
mote the  work  by  giving  the  very  tools,  with  which  it  can 
be  done.  It  represents  the  material  value  of  the  products 
of  labor  in  process  and  not  yet  complete,  for  which  it  pro- 
vides merely  the  current  wages  or  support,  till  the  fruit  of 
labor  comes  to  maturity,  when  that  pays  for  all. 

REP. — Mr.  Cooper,  what  is  your  opinion  of  the  present 
banking  system  ? 

Mr.  C. — Financial  institutions  are  very  useful,  and  will 
always  be  necessarry  to  carry  on  the  commerce,  trade  and 
industries  of  the  country.  They  concentrate  capital  in 
financial  centres,  from  which  it  is  again  distributed  all 
over  the  country,  where  it  is  most  wanted.  I  regard  a 
banking  system,  properly  confined  to  the  collecting  and 
loaning  out  of  the  real  capital,  in  aid  of  all  useful  enter- 
prises, as  a  national  blessing.  But,  incidentally,  banks  do  a 
great  deal  of  mischief  by  doing  business,  in  part,  on  a  bad 
system  and  on  false  assumptions.  They  often  confound  the 
distinction  between  credit  and  capital,  and  do  business  on 
credit  without  capital.  Credit  must  be  distinguished  from 
capital.  Credit  cannot  be  borrowed  or  lent,  it  can  only  be 
given,  or  exercised  by  one  mind  toward  another.  Capital  is 
borrowed  and  lent,  for  it  can  be  passed  from  hand  to  hand. 
The  one  is  very  necessary  to  the  other  ;  for  capital  supports 
credit,  and  credit  sets  capital  to  work  in  multiplying  capital ; 
thus  preventing  the  latter  from  waste  and  loss  of  it.  Credit 
and  capital,  therefore,  naturally  imply  each  other,  and  are 
necessary  to  a  mutual  existence.  It  is  death  or  disaster  to 
'  both  to  separate  them.  Financial  troubles  may  come  from 
the  want  of  capital  or  credit,  or  both. 


88  COIN   AND  PAPER   CURRENCY. 

REP. — But  how  do  you  account  for  our  present  financial 
troubles  ? 

Mr.  C. — Our  present  financial  troubles,  doubtless,  began 
in  the  want  of  sufficient  capital  at  command,  to  cany  on  cer- 
tain great  and  small  enterprises  to  successful  issues,  in 
which  the  parties  asked  more  credit  than  there  was  capital 
to  back  it.  But  when  these  parties  failed,  it  gave  a  shock 
to  credit ;  this  paralyzed  the  active  use  of  capital,  and  with- 
drew it  still  more  from  the  support  of  credit,  until  a  panic 
came.  For  people  did  not  know  where  or  when  this  trouble 
would  stop.  Like  a  crowd  in  a  public  building,  the  rush  for 
escape,  when  there  is  an  alarm  given,  bears  no  proportion  to 
the  danger ;  but  it  soon  substitutes  a  far  worse  source  of 
destruction  and  suffering  in  the  panic.  And,  as  in  this  case, 
the  trouble  is  soon  relieved  by  opening  wide  the  doors  of 
egress,  so,  in  financial  panics  and  troubles,  the  true  remedy 
is  expansion  of  credits  and  capital,  and  not  contraction. 

REP. — But  what  have  the  banks  to  do  with  all  this  \ 

Mr.  C. — I  have  not,  as  yet,  mentioned  the  chief  source  of 
our  financial  troubles  and  panics;  it  is  the  false  system, 
which  our  financial  institution  mix  up  with  what  is  true  in 
them.  They  rest  much  business  on  a  false  bottom,  which 
may  drop  out  at  any  time.  They  lend  their  credit  without 
sufficient  capital  to  back  it,  and  call  it  lending  capital.  The 
old  system  of  banks,  which  some  are  now  anxious  to  renew, 
lent  out  three  and  five  dollars  in  paper  to  one  of  gold,  kept 
for  redemption.  Their  capital  was  to  the  credit  they  as- 
sumed as  one  to  three,  five,  or  more ;  consequently,  when  the 
capital,  promised  by  the  paper,  was  called  for,  as  sooner  or 
later  it  must  be,  so  much  of  the  credit  came  to  naught,  in- 
volving loss  to  the  banks,  not  of  their  capital,  but  of  their 
sham  credits.  But  these  sham  credits  meanwhile  had  trans- 
ferred a  great  deal  of  real  property  from  the  hands,  to  which 
the  property  belonged  to  those,  who  held  the  temporary 
credit.  This  injustice  and  wTong  come  to  the  surface,  at 
short  intervals,  in  the  shape  of  panics  and  financial  distress. 
The  present  system  of  banks,  although  not  doing  business 


COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY.  89 

on  a  specie  basis,  yet  introduces  a  false  bottom  to  business  in 
another  way ;  they  do  a  large  amount  of  business  on  their 
depositors'  capital.  If  the  deposits  are  called  for  faster  fhan 
the  bank  can  return  them,  the  bank  fails  in  its  credit,  but 
loses  comparatively  little.  The  loss  of  real  capital  falls 
chiefly  on  the  trusting  depositors.  This  system  goes  smoothly, 
transferring  property  and  facilitating  trade,  till  the  capital, 
implied  by  the  credit,  is  needed  in  substantial  form.  The 
promise  can  no  longer  be  put  off ;  the  payment  is  required ; 
then  the  false  props  are  all  taken  away,  and  financial  ruin  is 
the  result ;  credit,  given  to  brains,  muscle,  industry  and  enter- 
prise, is  one  thing,  and  credit,  given  to  actual  products  and 
estates  is  another ;  but  still  credit,  based  on  either  is  a  real 
credit ;  because  brain- work  and  enterprise  are  just  as  real  as 
the  material  products,  to  which  they  give  existence.  But 
credit,  based  on  mere  assumption  or  supposition  of  capital, 
is  not  properly  based.  It  is  a  bogus  credit,  that  looks  like 
the  real  thing,  but  sooner  or  later  fails  entirely. 

If  the  Government  does  not  require  the  banks  to  redeem 
their  notes,  either  in  gold  or  in  bonds,  or  if  it  allows  them 
to  coin  their  deposits  into  loans,  it  gives  them  the  privilege 
of  giving  others  the  use  simply  of  the  banks'  credit,  far 
beyond  their  capital.  The  banks  have  done  too  much  of 
that  business  already. 

HEP. — What,  then,  would  be  your  remedy  for  this  false 
system  of  banking  ? 

MR.  C. — The  true  remedy  for  all  these  financial  shams 
and  pretences,  that  transfer  the  property  of  the  real  owners 
to  those,  who  are  mere  financial  agents,  is  to  permit  the 
banks  to  do  business  only  on  real  money  or  legal  tender, 
interconvertible  with  bonds.  This  will  convert  all  money 
into  a  safety  fund,  and  make  it  unnecessary  for  banks  to 
loan  their  deposits,  which  they  can  always  fund  in  Govern- 
ment securities,  and  have  them  again  on  call.  But  this  sys- 
tem will  expand  the  real  credits,  which  the  banks  can  give, 
based  all  on  real  capital,  and  make  such  credits  equal  to  the 
wants  of  a  new  and  expanding  country  like  ours,  with  insti- 


90  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

tutions,  that  stimulate  the  industries,  enteprises  and  powers 
of  this  people  beyond  anything,  that  history  can  yet  show 
of  any  people. 

Some  people  mistake  altogether,  or  put  a  false  construction 
on  transactions,  called  credit,  which  are  not  so  strictly. 
For  instance,  if  you  go  to  a  bank  or  a  broker  and  give  your 
bonds,  stocks,  securities  in  mortgages,  or  any  other  shape, 
and  borrow  a  certain  amount  on  the  same,  that  is  not  strictly 
giving  and  receiving  credit ;  it  is  simply  a  sale  of  property, 
WITH  AN  IF.  For,  if  you  fail  to  pay  on  a  certain  day,  there 
will  be  transference  of  property,  but  no  credit  lost.  In  fact, 
the  man  borrows  the  use  of  credit  in  the  shape  of  money, 
but  makes  it  good  on  his  own  property.  Therefore,  the 
borrower  himself  gives  the  only  foundation  there  is  to  that 
credit.  But,  if  the  man  is  about  to  improve  a  farm,  or  build 
a  factory,  and  borrows  money  to  buy  material  or  employ 
labor,  which  money  can  only  be  returned,  if  he  succeeds  in 
his  enterprise,  and  produces  a  piece  of  property  on  the 
strength  of  that  credit,  which  may  return  all  that  has  been 
invested  in  it,  THAT  is  REAL  CREDIT.  That  money  represents 
the  credit  or  faith,  given  to  an  enterprise  and  a  work  in 
progress,  which  may  result  in  some  valuable  property  ;  but, 
if  it  does  not,  the  credit  is  lost  and  both  borrower  and  cre- 
ditor are  sufferers  by  the  failure.  There  is  certainly  a 
difference  between  borrowing  money  on  the  security  of  a 
tangible  property,  equivalent  to  the  sum  borrowed,  and 
borrowing  money  on  the  faith  of  the  powers,  intelligence 
and  capacity  for  work,  which  will  create  a  piece  of  property, 
if  given  the  credit  and  opportunity,  which  the  money  fur- 
nishes. This  last  is  the  only  credit,  that  the  poor  need,  or 
can  ask.  But  it  is  essential  in  the  world,  and  there  ought 
to  be  no  limit  to  such  credit,  except  what  is  sufficient  to  set 
every  man  and  woman  to  some  useful  work. 

This  makes  credit  in  finance,  like  faith  in  religion,  "  the 
evidence  of  things  unseen  and  the  substance  of  things  hoped 
for."  This  process  is  going  on  every  day  ;  for  there  can  be 
no  growth  or  development  in  society  without  it.  But  now 


COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  91 

Governments,  general  and  local,  mix  up  their  own  credit,  or 
seek  altogether  to  sustain  the  public  on  private  credit.  The 
sovereign  authority  of  making  this  circulating  medium  of 
money,  which  ought  to  be  backed  by  the  highest,  most  per- 
manent and  reliable  ability  to  pay,  is  thought  safer  by  many, 
when  the  weight  of  responsibility  is  put  upon  private  shoul- 
ders or  those  of  corporations,  than  when  it  is  resting  upon 
the  broad  and  secure  basis  of  a  nation,  organized  under 
Republican  institutions  "  by  the  people  and  for  the  people," 
pledging  its  wealth  and  honor  as  a  nation  for  the  redemption 
of  all  debts,  incured  for  the  public  weal. 

This  enslaves  a  people,  through  the  very  machinery  of 
free  institutions  and  republican  forms,  to  the  will,  the  caprice, 
or  the  greed  of  particular  classes  of  individuals,  that  control 
money.  The  Government  should  never  be  a  borrower, 
except  of  such  labor  and  material  as  is  necessary  to  public 
service.  This  it  must  aknowledge  by  tokens  of  its  own  crea- 
tion and  stamp,  and  pay  at  maturity,  by  means  of  taxes  on 
property,  which  this  very  credit  has  brought  into  existence, 
and,  as  it  were,  SOLIDIFIED  into  a  permanent  source  of 
income,  such  as  a  great  public  work,  or  any  form  of  fixed 
capital,  or,  still  more,  a  nation's  life  and  prosperity,  "What 
I  said  New  York  was  doing,  and  might  do  with  regard  to 
her  public  works,  could  be  done  by  the  Government  on  a 
far  grander  scale. 

REP. — But,  Mr.  Cooper,  I  do  not  understand  what  you 
call  "real  money"  Is  not  gold  and  silver  the  only  real 
money,  and  all  other  forms  merely  representative  of  value  ? 

MR. — C.  No,  sir ;  gold  and  silver  is  not  the  only  real 
money.  The  precious  metals  are  constituted  money  by  the 
same  authority,  and  for  the  same  purpose,  that  paper  may 
be  employed  as  money.  Money  is  purely  a  creature  of  law. 
All  metals  must  be  coined  by  authority,  before  they  can  pass 
as  money  ;  and  the  proof  of  this  is  in  the  fact,  that  the 
precious  metal,  stamped  and  made  into  money  by  one 
Government,  will  not  pass  as  such  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
another.  Foreign  coin  is  never  a  legal  tender.  This  being 


92          COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

the  case,  we  must  look  to  something  else  as  the  essential 
characteristic  of  money,  than  the  exchangeable  value  of  the 
substance,  of  which  it  is  made,  which  makes  it  a  commodity 
in  any  market.  The  value  of  money  depends  upon  two 
conditions  only,  both  of  which  are  governed  by  law,  and 
only  one  of  which  depends  upon  demand  and  supply,  as  to 
the  values  of  pure  commodities.  The  first  condition  of 
giving  value  to  money  is  to  make  it  a  legal  tender  for  all 
private  debts,  and  also  the  taxes  and  dues  of  Government. 
This  gives  it  a  pure  legal  value,  and  makes  it  like  a  mortgage 
on  property,  and  also  like  a  note  of  hand,  issued  by  the 
Government,  and  secured  as  well  as  redeemed  by  its  taxing 
power  and  authority  over  the  whole  property  of  the  country. 
The  second  condition  of  value  in  money  is,  that  it  should 
be  rentable,  like  any  other  capital,  or  bear  some  interest  to 
the  lender.  This  can  also  be  fixed  by  law,  as  in  laws  of 
usury.  But  the  Government  can  go  further  than  this,  in 
giving  a  legal  value  to  its  own  legal  tender  in  the  shape  of 
paper  money ;  it  can  make  this  legal  tender  fundable  at  a 
fixed  rate  of  interest,  payable  either  in  coin  or  in  its  equiva- 
lent paper.  The  bonds  of  the  Government  thus  give  a  se- 
condary or  vendible  value  to  the  paper  money,  which  makes 
it  like  any  other  commodity,  rentable,  and  of  a  market 
value.  This  being  a  fact,  it  shows  that,  in  all  the  proper 
qualities  of  real  money,  paper  money  can  be  made  such  by 
the  Government  that  issues  it,  as  gold  or  silver  coin — it  will 
pay  all  your  debts  and  taxes,  and  also  has  a  market  value, 
because  it  is  rentable  or  loanable. 

REP. — But  not  abroad;  you  cannot  send  this  money 
abroad. 

MR.  C. — No,  you  cannot  send  'any  money  abroad,  except  as 
commodity,  vendible,  which  takes  from  it  the  character  of 
money.  But  this  is  an  advantage  in  the  use  of  paper  money, 
which,  being  an  indispensable  measure  of  values  at  home, 
and  a  necessary  means  of  exchange,  should  never  be  taken 
from  the  trade  and  domestic  uses  of  one  country  to  be  ex- 
ported as  commodity  to  another. 


COIN   AND   PAPEK  CURRENCY.  93 

REP. — How,  then,  shall  we  keep  up  its  value  on  a  par  with 
that  of  other  countries,  so  that  we  shall  not  be  buying  abroad 
with  one  standard  of  value,  and  selling  at  home  with  an- 
other ? 

MK.  C. — That  is  no  great  hardship,  compared  to  being  left 
without  sufficient  money  to  do  business  and  pay  the  wages 
of  labor.  But  the  true  remedy  for  this  is  to  encourage  in- 
dustry in  every  way  at  home,  so  as  to  have  a  surplus  of  pro- 
duction in  things,  that  can  find  a  market  abroad,  and  thus 
keep  even  the  balance  of  trade,  which  keeps  the  money  of 
different  countries  at  a  par  value.  For  this  purpose  nothing 
is  more  conducive  than  a  good,  sound  currency  at  home,  in 
sufficient  quantities,  at  all  times,  to  keep  up  all  the  ex- 
changes and  the  payment  of  wages,  needed  for  our  own 
domestic  industries,  and  to  protect  our  own  people  from  too 
great  a  competition  with  the  cheap  labor  of  Europe  by  a 
proper  revenue  tariff.  This  is  the  commercial  and  financial 
sheet-anchor  of  any  people.  A  tariff  taxes  the  surplus  of 
other  countries,  which  finds  its  way  to  our  own  markets  for 
the  support  of  the  Government  which  protects,  and  in  a  man- 
ner furnishes  that  market.  It  taxes  chiefly  the  capital  of 
the  foreign  manufacturer  and  the  domestic  importer  of  this 
surplus  production ;  because  they  must  find  a  market  some- 
where, and  therefore  sell  at  whatever  rates  they  can  get  in 
competition  with  the  industry  at  home,  helped  by  the  tariff ; 
and  it  taxes  the  consumer,  who  will  buy  luxuries,  that  leave 
our  own  good  raw  material  unused  and  our  own  domestic 
labor  unemployed — for  I  assume,  that  nothing  but  what  in- 
terferes with  these,  shall  be  subject  to  tariff. 

REP. — But  gold  and  silver  have  an  intrinsic  and  inalienable 
market  value  all  over  the  world  ;  whereas  your  Government 
paper  money — currency  or  bonds — has  purely  a  legal  value, 
and  may  be  real  to-day,  but  nothing  to-morrow,  depending 
entirely  upon  the  stability  of  Government. 

MR.  C. — So  has  all  paper,  representing  true  value  and 
made  the  medium  of  exchange — a  note  of  hand,  a  mortgage, 
or  a  bank-note — they  all  derive  their  virtual  value  from  the 


94  com  AI*D  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

law,  that  constitutes  them  representatives  of  value.  Yet 
modern  commerce  and  trade  cannot  dispense  with  these  and 
reduce  all  their  transactions  to  barter,  or  to  paying  balances 
with  gold  and  silver.  They  assume  the  stability  of  Govern- 
ments, without  which  neither  property  nor  life  are  secure. 
What  security  would  gold  give,  if  there  was  no  Government 
to  protect  it  ?  All  these  paper  obligations,  used  as  medium 
of  exchange  and  having  a  market  value,  are  based  upon  the 
faith,  the  property  and  stability  of  individuals  or  corpora- 
tions, with  the  further  sanction  of  law.  We  desire,  as  a 
medium  of  exchange  a  legal  tender,  that  shall  represent  the 
whole  taxable  property  of  the  country  and  the  stability  and 
faith  of  the  Government.  It  seems  to  me  that,  if  a  cor- 
poration can  issue  valuable  paper,  much  more  can  a  Gov- 
ernment, backed  by  the  resources  of  a  whole  people,  do  the 
same. 

HEP. — But  how  has  the  Government  failed  in  its  duty  to 
the  people  ? 

MR.  C. — The  Government,  during  the  progress  of  this  war 
of  the  Rebellion,  felt  obliged  to  employ  more  service  and 
material  in  the  struggle  for  existence  with  a  powerful  foe, 
than  it  could  pay  from  any  immediate  resources.  It  felt 
obliged  to  borrow  this  material  and  service  on  credit.  It 
issued  its  bonds;  but  the  Government  went  begging,  as 
New  York  does,  to  private  individuals  and  to  corporations 
to  furnish  another  credit,  called  money,  for  the  purpose  of 
paying  current  expenses.  The  limited  amount  of  this  latter 
credit,  which  was  at  the  service  of  the  Government,  made 
the  bonds  sell  at  great  discount  on  their  face. 

GOLD  was  sought  for,  when  there  was  not  enough  of  this 
product  of  labor  within  reach  to  represent  a  tithe  of  the 
credit,  sought  by  the  Government.  Now,  if  the  Govern- 
ment could  issue  one  form  of  credit,  why  go  begging  for 
another  ? 

This  occurred  at  last  to  some  of  those  in  authority,  and 
paper  money  tokens  were  issued.  Under  a  patriotic  im- 
pulse and  faith  in  this  nation  and  its  resources,  some  of 


COIN  AND   PAPEE   CTJEEENCY.  95 

these  were  made  receivable  for  all  dues  of  the  Government, 
and  others  made  convertible  into  5-20  bonds  at  par — at  the 
will  of  the  holder.  This  made  and  kept  the  currency  nearly 
at  par  with  gold,  even  in  the  DAKK  days  of  CIVIL  WAR.  This 
will  always  keep  the  national  currency  equal  in  value  to 
gold,  provided  it  is  the  only  paper  in  circulation,  and  the 
exclusive  legal  tender,  and  fully  redeemed  by  taxes,  duties 
and  Government  bonds,  at  the  option  of  the  holder.  The 
Government  thus  has  a  three-fold  method  of  redeeming  its 
paper,  whereas  the  banks  have  but  one  method,  and  that  is 
by  specie.  This  method  must  fail  them,  at  times,  because 
the  specie  will  go  out  of  the  country,  when  the  balances  of 
trade  are  against  us,  in  quantities  sufficient  to  interfere  with 
redemption.  "  Bank  paper,"  as  Calhoun  says,  "  is  cheap  to 
those,  who  make  it,  but  dear,  very  dear  to  those,  who  use 
it."  Banks  can  never  redeem  their  paper  in  specie,  except 
in  times  of  expanding  credits,  when  very  little  specie  is 
wanted.  During  such  times  the  banks  secure  themselves  on 
real  property,  but  the  public  is  secured  on  the  bank  paper 
only  in  its  promise  to  pay  coin.  But  this  national  currency 
was  found  to  be  far  safer,  than  any  private  or  corporation 
tokens  of  indebtedness,  and  threatened  to  supersede  all 
other  tokens  of  indebtedness  as  a  currency.  Tims  the  great 
power  and  moneyed  advantage,  which  the  making  of  such 
tokens  and  the  passing  of  them  into  circulation  gave  to  pri- 
vate corporations,  would  be  destroyed.  Those,  w^ho  had 
personal  interests  involved,  took  the  alarm ;  they  regarded 
their  vested  rights  infringed  upon,  and  they  had  influence 
enough  with  the  then  existing  administration  and  Congress 
to  have  that  law  repealed.  They  represented,  that  gold 
would  be  drained  from  the  country,  and  our  purchasing 
power  abroad  reduced  to  nothing. 

How  should  we  get  our  silks,  our  wines  and  our  cigars  ? 
The  importers,  brokers  and  inoney  changers  of  all  kinds,  as 
well  as  the  speculators  in  gold,  would  find  their  occupation 
gone !  It  was  in  vain  to  tell  these  alarmists,  that  gold  was 
one  of  the  many  products  of  industry,  and  those,  who  needed 


96  COIN   AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

it  must  buy  it  at  the  market  price,  which  no  legislation  could 
control,  though  it  might  falsify  and  interfere  with  the  nat- 
ural price  of  gold  for  a  time.  That  it  was  of  small  im- 
portance to  the  people  at  large,  how  much  gold,  measured  as 
a  commodity,  a  legal  tender  would  buy,  but  of  much  greater 
importance  how  much  bread  could  be  got  for  the  same 
money.  If  paper  is  made  a  legal  tender,  under  the  same 
advantages  as  gold,  that  is,  that  it  should  always  represent  a 
real  and  exchangeable  value  in  interest-bearing  property, 
and  receivable  for  all  debts,  public  and  private,  the  paper 
would  then  be  on  a  par  with  gold  as  money.  No  !  these 
parties  understood,  as  they  thought,  THEIR  OWN  INTERESTS, 
and  under  specious,  but  false  pretences  and  arguments,  in- 
duced Congress  to  repeal  the  law,  that  made  the  currency  of 
the  United  States  receivable  for  all  dues  to  the  Government, 
and  also  the  law,  making  legal  tender  notes  fundible  into 
Government  securities  at  par.  The  repeal  of  the  law,  per- 
mitting holders  of  legal  tenders  to  convert  them,  at  their 
option,  into  interest-bearing  bonds,  wTas  the  most  cruel  act  of 
injustice,  that  was  ever  inflicted  on  the  American  people. 
Thence  have  come  most  of  the  financial  troubles  and  dis- 
asters, of  which  so  much  complaint  is  made  at  the  present 
time.  Our  bonds  were  rushed  abroad  to  be  exchanged  for 
luxuries  and  for  gold  at  sixty  cents  on  the  dollar,  instead  of 
being  taken  by  our  own  people  at  par. 

Millions  of  gold  go  abroad  to  pay  interest  to  foreign  bond- 
holders, instead  of  being  paid  to  our  own  people. 

A  policy  of  rapid  contraction  was  then  inspired  into  the 
Government ;  the  necessities  of  war  being  over,  further 
issues  of  bonds  were  made  and  currency  was  withdrawn, 
and  all  credits  began  to  contract,  as  a  natural  and  inevitable 
consequence.  This  brought  on  one  of  those  irrational  con- 
ditions in  human  affairs,  which  we  call  a  panic,  that  brought 
down  credit  at  once  to  the  zero  point,  and  shrunk  the  value 
of  all  property. 

REP. — But,  Mr.  Cooper,  do  you  not  think,  that  personal 
extravagance,  rash  speculations,  and  over-production  gen- 


COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  97 

erally  have  much  to  do  with  the  present  financial  embarrass- 
ments ? 

MR.  C. — In  a  restricted  sense  all  these  causes  lie  at  the 
basis  of  much  financial  embarrassment.  But  all  of  them 
put  together  will  not  account  for  the  fact,  that  there  are 
over  two  millions  of  workmen,  operatives,  and  employees 
out  of  work  at  this  time  in  this  country,  or  on  short  allow- 
ance of  work,  who  three  years  ago  had  ample  employment. 
Speculations  ruin  a  few  in  financial  centres  and  cause  merely 
a  change  of  ownership  in  property,  and  the  loss  of  credit  to 
those,  engaged  in  such  speculations.  Personal  extravagance 
is  chiefly  confined  to  a  few  rich  men  ;  for  most  people  care 
not  or  are  unable  to  indulge  beyond  their  means. 

Over-production  and  undue  importations  seem  to  be  the 
most  plausible  of  the  reasons,  offered  for  the  present  finan- 
cial embarrassments ;  because,  when  goods  accumulate  in 
merchants'  hands,  and  products  multiply  in  the  factories, 
mines  and  farms,  without  a  corresponding  demand  and  con- 
sumption, the  most  obvious  cause  or  explanation  is,  that 
there  has  been  too  much  production  and  importation.  But 
have  these  been  too  much  for  the  demand  and  consumption 
previously  existing,  or  subsequently  ?  The  true  law  of  sup- 
ply, the  stimulus,  and  reason  for  production,  is  demand ; 
this  comes  first,  and  the  former  comes  last  in  the  order  of 
nature.  There  might  be  a  production,  that  overtakes  and 
passes  an  existing  consumption  in  particular  cases  ;  but  it  is 
well  also  to  examine,  in  a  general  way,  whether  any  cause 
has  paralyzed  consumption.  Now,  it  has  been  seen,  that  the 
systematic  and  constant  contraction  of  Government  credits 
naturally  induced  the  contraction  of  all  other  credits ;  this 
finally  brought  on  a  panic,  that  acted  like  a  paralysis  on  all 
credit ;  this  led 'inevitably  to  the  stoppage  of  so  much  active 
industry  and  work,  as  to  take  away  the  PURCHASING  power  of 
a  great  many,  and  to  stop  a  large  part  of  the  previously  ex- 
isting consumption  and  demand.  Hence,  the  over-produc- 
tion (so-called)  has  been  merely  an  accumulation  of  products, 
due  to  UNDERCONSUMPTION.  The  proof  of  this  lies  in  the 
7 


98  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

fact,  as  I  have  said,  of  so  many  industrious  people  being 
thrown  out  of  work,  and  in  the  statistics  of  the  country, 
with  regard  to  its  exportations  and  importations  the  last  few 
years.  In  this  connection  the  opinion  of  President  Grant, 
as  expressed  in  his  annual  message  of  1873,  is  important. 

REP. — But  how  would  you  have  prevented  this  sad  condi- 
tion of  things  from  coming  on  ?  It  appears  to  me  it  arose 
naturally  out  of  the  irredeemable  nature  of  the  currency. 
Gold  and  silver  have  always  been  regarded  as  the  currency 
and  money  of  the  world.  A  man,  that  is  in  debt,  naturally 
desires  to  get  out  of  it  as  soon  as  he  can.  Why,  then,  should 
not  a  nation  exercise  economy  or  contraction  for  the  same 
end? 

MR.  C. — Because  contraction  in  finance  is  not  the  same 
thing  as  economy  in  private  life.  Contraction  in  the  finances 
of  a  country  means  the  stoppage  of  a  certain  amount  of  the 
industry  and  exchanges,  going  on  in  the  nation  by  reason  of 
the  contraction  of  the  credit,  by  which  these  are  sustained. 
It  means  factories  stopped,  men  thrown  out  of  work,  and 
distress  of  families  for  want  of  the  means  to  buy  bread. 
Now,  THIS  is  ALL  WRONG,  and  it  arises  out  of  a  false  finan- 
cial system,  not  adapted  to  the  wants  of  a  people,  whose 
wants  and  powers  are  all  the  time  expanding,  by  reason  of 
a  natural  increase  in  the  population,  and  by  our  possession 
of  a  new  country  of  unlimited  natural  resources,  which  yet 
need  to  be  developed  by  the  EXPANSION,  and  not  the  con- 
traction of  the  credit,  which  capital  gives  to  labor. 

But,  I  grant  you;  there  is  a  contraction  on  the  side  of  debt 
in  the  finances  of  a  country,  which  is  always  desirable.  It 
is  in  that  SOLIDIFYING  process,  which  I  have  already  de- 
scribed, that  turns  currency  into  fixed  capital,  as  the  Hood  is 
deposited  into  lones,  fiesh  and  organism.  The  bond,  and 
the  currency,  based  on  it,  must  be  paid  and  destroyed  as 
evidence  of  that  debt,  as  soon  as  value  received  for  them 
can  be  turned  into  some  permanent  source  of  industry  and 
capital,  like  the  stone  wharves  and  piers  of  the  City  of  New 
York.  But  new  credits  must  ever  spring  up,  which  are  the 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  99 

incipient  condition  of  new  improvements,  public  and  pri- 
vate, and  all  fixed  forms  of  capital.  There  must  always  be 
expansion  enough  in  the  currency  to  set  all  the  capacity  for 
useful  labor  in  the  country  to  work.  This  is  the  only  limit 
to  the  expansion  of  credits.  Gold  and  silver  ceased  long  ago 
in  the  history  of  the  world  to  serve  as  an  adequate  repre- 
sentative of  all  those  exchanges,  which  are  going  on  in  the 
civilized  world,  and  which  it  is  the  proper  function  of  money 
to  represent.  Coin  has  long  called  to  its  assistance  paper 
of  credit,  both  private  and  public,  not  merely  to  represent 
coin  as  money,  but  to  represent  other  real  property,  and 

ESPECIALLY  THE  CURRENT  DAILY  LABOR  OF  THE  WORLD'S  INDUS- 
TRIAL CLASSES,  whose  aggregate  wages  any  day  could  not  be 
paid  BY  ALL  THE  COIN  IN  THE  WORLD.  France  uses  gold,  sil- 
ver and  paper,  all  as  legal  tenders,  and  keeps  them  all  busy 
to  satisfy  her  industrial  and  financial  wants.  But  France 
could  not  get  along  a  single  day  with  the  coin  alone,  which 
is  within  its  borders,  or  with  paper,  that  merely  represented 
coin  as  currency.  This  being  the  fact,  as  every  one  ought 
to  know,  who  talks  on  this  subject,  it  is  a  most  preposterous 
claim,  that  coin  alone  can  serve  as  legal  tender,  or  paper 
always  convertible  into  coin.  You  may  adopt  the  legal  fic- 
tion, that  all  legal  tenders  should  be  convertible  into  coin  at 
the  will  of  the  holder,  but  you  cannot  carry  out  this  in  fact ; 
and  the  failure  to  carry  it  out  at  any  given  time,  for  any 
cause,  may  produce  &  panic  with  all  its  disasters. 

REP. — But  what  would  you  have  the  Government  do  in 
reference  to  its  present  policy  ? 

MR.  C. — The  course  is  plain.  Let  the  Government  issue, 
not  only  all  the  legal  tenders,  but  all  that  passes  in  the  shape 
of  money — all  should  have  the  image  and  superscription  of 
the  Government,  whether  it  be  goin  or  paper.  Let  the  Gov- 
ernment start  from  a  fact,  that  there  has  been  and  is  now, 
through  its  instrumentality  and  necessities,  so  many  millions 
of  legal  tenders  and  bank  paper  or  currency  set  afloat,  which, 
with  the  Government  bonds  now  out,  represent  so  much 
credit,  resting  on  the  honor  and  ability  of  the  Government 


100         COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY. 

to  pay,  but  furnishing  also  the  basis  for  a  great  amount  of 
credit  in  the  financial  system  of  the  country.  On  this  the 
country  has  been  depending,  and  with  this  it  has  been  at 
work,  in  all  its  industries  and  trade,  since  the  credit  paper 
came  into  existence. 

The  Government  has  no  right  to  take  away  these  tools,  that 
have  set  so  much  work  on  foot,  from  the  people.  It  is  not 
justice.  Suppose  a  man  has  engaged  another  in  the  enter- 
prise of  building  a  house  or  factory,  by  promising  to  furnish 
all  the  tools,  and  by  giving  a  certain  valuation  of  rent  for  it, 
when  it  is  finished.  Then  at  a  certain  stage  of  the  pi'ocess 
of  erection,  the  proprietor  takes  away  a  part  of  the  tools 
necessary  to  finish  the  work,  and,  moreover,  diminishes  the 
valuation  of  both  work  and  material.  Would  not  that  be 
considered  a  great  act  of  injustice,  especially,  if  the  builder 
had  no  remedy  in  law  against  the  proprietor  f  Now,  this 
is  precisely  what  the  Government  has  done  to  the  industrial 
part  of  the  nation,  with  the  additional  injustice  of  compul- 
sion in  its  dealings  with  the  people,  who  are  not  the  moneyed 
and  the  governing  class.  The  Government,  during  a  time  of 
great  exigency,  issued  millions  of  credit  paper,  on  the  strength 
of  which  the  people  willingly  furnished  labor  and  material 
to  carry  on  a  war  of  self-preservation  against  rebellion  and 
disruption.  But  not  only  that,  the  people  began  to  build  up 
the  country  on  the  strength  of  this  same  credit  paper  ;  they 
set  on  foot  new  enterprises,  built  railroads, factories,  and 
opened  new  mines  and  farms  on  the  same  credit,  and  by  the 
facilities  for  paying  labor  and  material,  which  this  Govern- 
ment currency  afforded.  After  the  war  was  over  the  Gov- 
ernment began  to  Contract  this  currency,  and  to  tax  the 
people,  in  order  to  buy  its  bonds  before  they  were  yet  due  / 
which  policy  contracted  credit  so  much  the  more  •  and  it  has 
continued  to  pursue  systematically  a  policy  of  contraction  ; 
for  the  purpose,  as  alleged,  to  resume  specie  payments  on  this 
currency.  The  people  do  not  want  specie  ;  they  want  the 
credits  already  gwen  them,  not  to  be  withdrawn'  they 
want  their  labor  and  material,  freely  given  to  save  the  coun- 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.          101 

try,  or  to  build  it  up,  to  be  valued  by  the  same  standard  as 
that  by  which  it  was  measured,  when  they  began  to  work. 
The  moneyed  class  obviously  want  scarce  money  and  high 
rates  of  interest.  This  gives  them  more  power  and  less  ex- 
pense. But  the  advantage  of  the  whole  people,  including 
this  very  moneyed  class,  if  their  interests  were  rightly  under- 
derstood,  is  to  have  credit  easy  to  the  industrious,  the  hon- 
est, and  the  enterprising,  and  the  interest  of  money  more 
nearly  equitable. 

REP. — What,  then,  Mr.  Cooper,  would  be  your  specific 
remedy  for  the  financial  troubles,  which  involve  the  country 
at  present  ?  What  would  be  the  policy  you  would  recom- 
mend for  the  action  of  Congress  ? 

ME.  C. — At  present  Congress  has  devised  no  better  plan  for 
the  financial  policy  of  the  country  than  this.  Congress  has 
passed  a  law,  that  specie  payments  for  all  currency  shall  be 
resumed  in  1879,  and  to  provide  for  this,  it  has  authorized  the 
Treasurer  of  the  United  States  to  withdraw  currency,  until  the 
present  volume  shall  shrink  from  four  hundred  to  three 
hundred  millions  ;  and  he  is  further  authorized  to  sell  bonds 
at  4  or  4J  per  cent,  interest,  to  the  amount  necessary  to  get 
the  specie  wherewith  to  resume  payments.  As  the  5  per 
cent,  bonds,  outstanding,  are  only  at  par  now,  I  think  the 
prospect  is  very  poor  for  selling  the  4  or  4^  per  cent,  with- 
out ruinous  discounts  and  large  addition  to  the  debt  of  the 
nation.  If  the  banks  also  are  made  to  do  business  and  issue 
-  their  notes  only  on  a  specie  basis,  instead  of  bonds  as  now, 
it  will  shrink  their  currency  so  as  to  bring  another  panic. 

But,  if  the  banks  are  allowed  to  give  credits,  secured  by 
Government  bonds,  why  should  not  the  Government  itself 
do  the  same  ?  If  it  will  hurt  the  banks,  cripple  and  curtail 
so  much  their  resources  for  giving  credit,  why  is  not  such  a 
policy  objectionable  as  to  the  credits,given  by  the  Govern- 
ment ?  But  here  is  precisely  the  point  of  departure  of  the 
moneyed  class  from  the  people  at  large.  They  wish  to 
monopolize,  not  only  private,  but  all  public  credits.  All 
credits  under  the  sanction  and  provision  of  law  and  the 


102         COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY. 

Government  ought  to  be  public  credits,  for  which  the  Gov- 
ernment alone  should  be  held  responsible.  Such  is  any 
paper  currency  now,  even  if  it  is  not  legal  tender.  Nothing 
but  a  legal  sanction  can  pass  a  bank-note  into  the  circulation 
to  the  country.  The  credit  of  the  bank  is  indorsed  by  the 
Government,  in  order  to  be  regarded  as  good.  The  Gov- 
ernment, under  the  present  system,  often  borrows  its  own 
indorsement!  But  the  first  point  of  departure  I  would 
have  from  this  whole  system  of  finance  is,  that  everything, 
gold,  silver,  or  paper,  that  passes  into  the  circulation  of  the 
country,  as  money,  should  have  the  Government's  image 
and  superscription  upon  it,  and  should  be  issued  and  con- 
trolled entirely  by  the  Government,  so  that  there  shall  be  no 
legalized  money,  directly  or  indirectly,  belonging  to  private 
corporations.  This  is  a  part  of  that  special  and  class  legisla- 
tion^ that  I  have  always  contended  against,  as  the  bane  of 
Republican  institutions. 

Now,  I  would  have  Congress  repeal  this  last  act  of  con- 
traction of  the  people's  credits  in  the  shape  of  currency, 
while  it  is  an  expansion  of  credits  to  the  moneyed  class,  in 
the  shape  of  bonds. 

I  would  have  Congress  pass  an  act,  which  should  make 
all  currency  that  of  the  Government  alone ;  and,  of  course, 
I  should  abolish  the  present  bank  currency,  giving  these  in- 
stitutions the  option  of  doing  business  only  on  legal  tenders ; 
these  they  may  secure  at  any  time,  by  simply  giving  up  to 
the  Government  an  equivalent  amount  of  Government 
bonds,  whose  interest  thereafter  stops,  until  bought  up 
again  by  legal  tenders.  This  will  extinguish  the  interest- 
bearing  debt  of  the  'country  in  part,  by  one  not  bearing  in- 
terest. 

Secondly,  to  start  all  fairly  and  justly,  /  would  have  Con- 
gress pass  an  act,  restoring  the  currencg  in  volume  to  the 
condition,  in  which  it  was  at  the  close  of  the  war,  or  soon 
after  •  when,  peace  being  declared,  the  whole  nation  sprang 
to  the  arts  of  peace  with  the  energy  of  war  •  when  they  took 
these  very  credits,  which  the  necessities  of  Government  had 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.          103 

furnished,  as  the  price  of  the  nation's  life,  and  began  to 
build  up  the  country  still  more  securely  in  the  wealth  and 
products  of  myriad-handed  industry  y  when  their  hopes 
and  their  faith  were  stimulated  to  new  life  by  this  mighty 
credit,  poured  into  the  circulation  of  the  country,  and  all 
the  property  of  the  country  and  its  products  were  measured 
and  exchanged  by  the  new  standard  ;  when  none  were  found 
idle,  except  the  shiftless  and  those,  who  sought  idleness ; 
when  no  factory  stopped  its  production  for  want  of  con- 
sumers, for  all  were  consumers,  because  all  were  producers. 
I  would  have  all  that  currency  restored  to  the  country,  and 
not  withdrawn  or  contracted  by  taxing  the  property  of  the 
country  to  pay  it ;  but  allowed  to  remain,  till  it  had  pro- 
duced its  equivalent  by  the  industry  and  products,  which  it 
brought  into  existence. 

I  would  have  this  whole  volume  of  currency  made  as  per- 
manent and  invariable  a  measure  of  property  and  exchange 
as  possible,  by  neither  increasing  nor  diminishing  its  volume 
by  any  arbitrary  law ;  but  rather  use  the  agency  of  Govern- 
ment to  keep  at  its  present  stated  volume,  by  issuing  it 
again  with  one  hand  for  labor,  service  and  bonds,  while  it 
received  it  with  the  other  as  currency.  I  would  have  this 
specific  volume  of  the  currency,  from  which  we  shall  now 
start,  henceforth  and  forever,  never  diminished  at  all,  and 
only  increased  as  per  capita,  very  gradually  and  impercep- 
tibly, as  statistics  shall  show,  and  a  rule  of  increase  founded 
thereon,  as  the  exchanges  and  the  population  of  the  country 
increase.  And  this  would  be  virtually  equivalent  to  making 
the  currency  a  permanent  and  unfluctuating  standard  of 
values ;  for  it  would  keep  it  in  the  same  ratio  or  relative 
measure  to  all  the  property  of  the  country  and  the  increase 
of  its  population.  I  would  thus  make  the  stated  volume  of 
currency,  which  has  been  forced  upon  the  country  at  one 
time,  but  which  now  threatens  the  most  unhappy  conse- 
quences, if  it  be  withdrawn — I  would  make  this  one  volume 
an  unvarying  measure  for  all  time,  by  giving  it  an  expan- 
sion by  rule  and  statistical  measure  of  slow  application,  and 


104          COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

such  as  would  never  derange  prices  or  permit  fluctuations. 
I  would  not  increase  the  bonded  debt  of  the  country  either, 
except  by  rule  and  statistical  measure ;  but  I  would  change 
its  form  from  the  present  high  rate  of  interest,  and  from  so 
large  a  portion  payable  in  gold  to  foreigners,  into  a  debt  of 
equitable  rate  of  interest,  and  payable  to  our  own  citizens. 

REP. — But  how  can  this  be  done  without  repudiation  and 
dishonor  to  the  country  ? 

MR.  C. — No  vested  rights  can  stand  in  the  face  of  the 
public  welfare;  common  and  statute  law  recognizes  this 
principle.  Hence,  all  vested  rights  can  be  repealed  by  the 
law-making  power,  that  conferred  them.  Under  this  prin- 
ciple, private  property  can  be  taken  for  public  use,  and  all 
corporate  rights  can  be  abolished,  that  stand  in  the  way  of 
the  public  welfare — but  never  without  proper  compensation 
to  the  parties,  that  may  be  losers ;  and  of  this,  the  public 
administration  must  appoint  the  means  and  provide  the 
regulations.  But  I  propose  to  change  the  character  of  the 
bonded  debt  by  a  voluntary  process. 

First.  Whoever  needs  currency  must  give  up  the  Gov- 
ernment bonds  for  it.  The  compulsion  here  is  in  making 
every  one  do  business  and  pay  debts  in  legal  tenders ;  and 
the  principle  for  their  use  exclusively  is,  that  the  public 
welfare  admits  of  no  other  money. 

Secondly.  Whoever  desires  to  fund  the  currency  shall 
receive  bonds  at  a  lower  rate  of  interest  than  that,  which 
legitimate  business  now  gives,  but  which  is  higher  than  the 
average  yearly  increase  of  the  whole  property  of  the  coun- 
try. This  I  would  fix  upon  as  the  interest  of  the  bonds ; 
it  is  now  about  three  per  cent. 

There  is  an  element  of  compulsion  here ;  but  as  the  whole 
country  pays  the  interest  on  the  public  debt,  it  seems  but 
just,  that  only  that  amount  of  interest  should  be  paid,  which 
the  increase  in  the  public  wealth  justifies,  and  no  more. 

REP. — But  how  will  you  prevent  the  too  rapid  funding  of 
the  currency,  and  keep  it  at  a  steady  volume,  as  you  pro- 
pose ? 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.         105 

MR.  C. — This  too  rapid  funding  is,  I  think,  a  groundless 
fear,  considering  the  low  rate  of  interest  given.  Because, 
in  a  country  like  this,  so  active,  so  enterprising,  and  so  full 
of  new  resources,  the  opportunities  and  the  solicitation  for 
safe  investments  are  far  greater  than  in  the  old  country,  and 
would  naturally  tend  to  draw  money  from  funding ;  so  that 
the  calls  for  currency  would  be  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  the 
applications  for  funding.  But  as  the  Government  controls 
the  whole  matter,  it  can  keep  an  even  hand  by  allowing 
neither  the  funded  debt  nor  the  currency  to  increase  beyond 
a  certain  ratio  to  each  other.  As  the  currency  was  received, 
it  might  be  paid  out  again  for  service,  material,  or  bonds ; 
as  the  bonds  were  received,  they  could  be  paid  out  again  for 
service,  material,  or  currency.  Thus  the  whole  of  the  cir- 
culation between  bonds  and  currency  could  be  kept  even. 

This  great  bonded  debt  of  the  country  would  really  be- 
come the  refuge  and  security  of  the  wid^w  and  the  father- 
less, and  those  poor  and  ignorant  people,  who  cannot  invest 
their  little  savings  in  legitimate  business,  even  through 
others,  because  they  cannot  trust  them,  and  have  no  ability 
to  watch  the  safety  and  protect  the  use  and  return  of  their 
money.  The  public  debt  would  become  the  poor  man's 
Savings  Bank,  instead  of  being  as  now,  the  exchequer  of  the 
rich,  and  the  means  of  pampering  wealth  and  idleness. 
Benevolent  institutions,  churches,  and  college  endowments 
would  seek  it,  for  the  same  reason,  because  of  its  perfect 
safety  ;  and  even  the  same  funded  interests  of  Europe  would 
seek  investment  in  this  country  for  security,  and  would 
gladly  pay  gold  for  all  the  bonds  they  could  buy,  at  a  little 
higher  interest  than  their  own  countries  could  afford. 

REP. — But  what  about  the  gold  all  this  time,  which  is  now 
very  much  mixed  up  with  this  question  of  finance,  because 
it  is  so  universally  the  legal  tender  of  civilized  nations  ? 

Mr.  C. — It  might  be  a  part  of  our  legal  tender  still. 
France  makes  gold,  silver,  an'd  paper,  all  legal  tenders ;  why 
cannot  we  ?  But,  if  any  one  wants  gold  as  a  commodity ,  let 
him  buy  it  as  any  other  commodity,  at  the  market  price. ' 


106  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

Let  such  exchange  or  currency  or  any  other  commodity  for 
gold,  as  suits  their  convenience  and  the  state  of  the  market, 
which  no  Government  can  control  without  tyranny  and  in- 
terference with  private  rights.  That  whole  subject  will  take 
care  of  itself,  and  the  whole  circulation  of  the  world  will 
naturally  mingle  and  interchange  with  our  national  circula- 
tion, as  the  outer  air  mingles  and  interchanges  with  the  air 
of  the  room,  if  passages  are  left  free. 

KEP. — I  understand  you,  then,  Mr.  Cooper,  that  you  re- 
gard this  whole  contest  about  the  currency  as  a  conflict 
between  the  vested  rights  of  the  whole  moneyed  class  and 
their  interests,  but  ill  understood,  and  the  rights  and  inter- 
ests of  the  whole  people ;  that  you  regard  the  whole  legis- 
lation of  Congress  on  this  subject,  with  little  exception,  as 
made  in  the  interests  of  class,  special  and  partial  legislation, 
which  has  been,  thus  far,  the  bane  of  our  Republican  institu- 
tions ;  because,  under  forms  of  law,  it  sacrifices  the  people 
to  classes  of  special  privileges ;  and  I  understand  your  pres- 
ent remedy  for  all  the  present  evils  and  all  the  future,  which 
are  likely  to  occur  from  our  system  of  finance,  is,  that  Gov- 
ernment alone  issue  all  currency  and  whatever  circulates 
as  money,  and  makes  this  currency  interconvertible  with 
bonds,  which  the  Government  can  control,  and  not  with  gold, 
which  it  cannot  control ;  and  further,  that  the  Government 
start  in  the  present  emergency,  from  precisely  that  volume 
of  credits  in  currency  and  in  bonds,  that  was  set  afloat  by  the 
irresistible  necessities  of  the  war  for  the  Union ;  that  this 
volume  should  be  sustained  substantially  as  it  was  soon  after 
the  close  of  the  war,  when  it  rose  to  its  maximum ;  and  be 
made  the  measures  of  all  values,  and  the  means  of  exchanges 
for  all  coming  time — subject  only  to  the  slow  increase  of 
volume,  which  statistics  shall  justify  as  the  increase  of  popu- 
lation, and  its  ratio,  per  capita,  to  the  currency. 

Mr.  C. — That  is  precisely  as  I  propose  ;  and  my  efforts  to 
bring  this  subject  before  the  public  are  heartily  seconded  by 
many  able  gentlemen. 

REP. — But  it  appears  to  me,  Mr.  Cooper,  you  place  great 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CUKKENCY.          107 

power  in  the  hands  of  the  Government  by  such  a  policy.  It 
may  lead  to  enormous  speculations  and  peculations  on  the 
part  of  individuals  and  officials.  Politics  will  become  a  trade 
more  than  ever$  because  of  their  close  connection  with 
finance,  commerce  and  moneyed  institutions.  Some  admin- 
istration may  ride  again  and  again  into  power,  and  over- 
throw finally  all  the  free  institutions  of  the  country  with  a 
great  flood  of  currency,  which  it  can  manufacture  in  unlim- 
ited quantities  by  a  slight  change  in  the  laws,  that  Congress 
may  be  induced  to  enact  at  any  time. 

Mr.  C. — It  would  require  almost  a  treatise  on  republican 
government  to  answer  all  your  objections,  and  then  you 
could  not  be  answered,  if  you  had  no  faith  in  free  principles 
and  democratic  forms,  and  in  the  paternal  functions  of  a 
Government  instituted  "  by  the  people  and  for  the  people." 
The  slave-holders  of  our  country  had  to  learn  this  lesson  at 
last,  and  I  do  not  know  any  vested  rights  in  property  so 
enormous,  or  so  intelligent  and  well  organized  resistance  as 
slavery  brought  to  bear  upon  the  free  institutions  of  this 
country.  And  yet  the  slave-holding  portion  of  this  country 
will  find  itself  the  greatest  gainer  by  its  losses.  They  lost 
in  the  conflict,  chiefly  through  the  might  of  truth  and  jus- 
tice, which  will  be  their  great  gain.  "We  shall  have  many 
conflicts,  doubtless,  between  the  people  on  one  side,  and 
moneyed,  social,  or  religious  classes  organized  with  certain 
claims  and  even  vested  rights ;  but  never  again  so  great  a 
conflict  as  the  slave-holders  brought  about.  I  tl}ink  the 
Union  and  the  Republic  may  be  regarded  as  safe  for  a  long 
time  to  come.  The  people  can  and  will  control  this  Govern- 
ment in  their  own  interest  in  the  future,  as  well  as  in  the 
past,  precisely  in  proportion  as  they  can  be  made  conscious 
of  their  power  and  their  rights.  The  forms  of  the  Consti- 
tution and  laws  are  all  favorable  to  them  now,  but  their  un- 
derstanding is  darkened  by  bad  counsels.  The  Government 
is  already,  and  ought  to  be  in  a  still  larger  measure,  paternal. 
It  should  aim  constantly  to  "  establish  justice,"  and  organize 
love  and  right  into  law.  If  we  can  teach  the  people  justice 


108         COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

and  truth,  they  will  see  to  it  that  the  "  Republic  suffers  no 
detriment."  There  is  nothing  that  I  can  perceive  in  the 
policy  I  advise,  that  will  place  any  uncontrollable  power  in 
the  hands  of  any  Administration  or  Congress.  If  the  law 
will  not  protect  the  people's  rights,  let  provisions  of  the 
Constitution  be  resorted  to.  Let  us  have  a  civil  service,  that 
will  make  office  under  Government  more  of  a  professional 
and  regular  occupation  than  of  trade  and  bargain  for  place 
and  patronage.  Let  the  United  States  embody  in  their  Con- 
stitution, as  has  the  State  of  New  York,  that  there  shall  be  "  no 
Special,  partial,  or  class  legislation"  and  make  its  laws  on 
the  currency  conform  to  this  provision  of  the  Constitution. 

The  question  of  the  currency  is  of  boundless  importance 

.  to  the  American  people.     The  stability  of  our  Government 

will  depend  on  a  wise  settlement  of  this  momentous  interest. 

The  American  people  will  never  allow  this  subject  to  rest, 
until  it  is  safely  moored  to  that  sure  foundation  of  the  eter- 
nal principles  of  truth  and  justice,  on  which  our  fathers 
placed  the  Constitution  of  these  United  States. 

Our  fathers  meant,  that  the  Government  should  be  of  the 
people  and  for  the  people.  They  intended  to  embody  the 
wisdom  of  simplicity  into  law,  and  make  it  a  shield  of  pro- 
tection for  the  unsuspecting  masses  of  the  people  against 
those,  that  are  resorting  to  all  forms  of  art  to  obtain  pro- 
perty without  labor.  The  framers  of  the  Constitution 
would  never  have  recommended  one  kind  of  money  for  the 
issues  of  the  Government,  and  another  for  the  people. 

Under  the  circumstances,  in  which  our  Government  was 
placed  at  the  close  of  the  late  war,  they  should  have  taken 
the  advice  of  their  most  venerated  member,  Benjamin 
Franklin,  who  said  that  "  paper  money,  well-founded,  has 
great  advantages  over  gold  and  silver,  being  light,  and  con- 
venient for  handling  in  large  sums,  and  not  likely  to  be 
reduced  by  demand  for  exportation." 

"  On  tne  whole,"  he  says,  "  no  method  has  hitherto  been 
found  to  establish  a  medium  of  trade,  equal  in  all  its  advan- 
tages to  bills  of  credit  made  a  general  legal  tender." 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.         109 

If  I  have  done,  or  can  do  anything  to  restore  the  tools  of 
trade  to  the  American  people,  to  enable  them  to  work  out 
the  salvation  of  our  country  from  the  present  paralyzed 
condition  of  trade  and  commerce,  I  shall  regard  it  as  a 
treasure  that  "  moth  and  rust  cannot  corrupt," — one  that 
will  brighten,  while  life,  thought  and  immortality  endure. 


Two  OPEN  LETTERS  TO  HIS  EXCELLENCY  R.  B.  HAYES. 

New  York,  June  1,  1877. 

HONORED  SIR — Allow  me  to  offer  you  my  heartfelt  thanks 
for  the  wise  and  independent  course  you  have  adopted  in 
the  discharge  of  the  responsible  and  difficult  duties,  that  you 
have  been  called  upon  to  perform.  The  deep  interest  you 
are  manifesting  in  the  nation's  welfare,  has  already  sent  a 
thrill  of  hope  and  joy  into  the  hearts  of  suffering  millions 
throughout  our  country.  They  are  looking  to  you  with 
anxious  hope,  that  you  will  urgently  recommend  and  insist 
upon  the  " establishment  of  justice"  in  the  dealings  of  the 
Government  with  the  people ;  as  that  is  the  only  possible 
way,  by  which  the  general  "  welfare  of  the  nation  can  be 
promoted." 

Your  noble  course  has,  thus  far,  inspired  the  people  with 
the  hope  and  trust,  that  you  will,  in  the  providence  of  God? 
be  our  country's  Moses,  to  lead  the  people  from  a  threatened 
bondage,  that  now  hangs  over  the  liberties  and  the  happiness 
of  the  American  people. 

This  bondage  has  its  manifold  centre  and  its  secret  force 
in  more  than  two  thousand  banks,  that  are  scattered  through- 
out the  country.  All  these  banks,  are  organized  expressly 
to  loan  out  their  own  money  and  the  money  of  all  those,  who 
will  entrust  them  with  deposits.  These  loans  are  made  to 
men,  whose  business-lives  will  soon  become  dependent  on 
money,  borrowed  from  corporations,  that  have  a  special  inter- 
est of  their  own.  Such  a  power  of  wealth,  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  selfish  instincts  of  mankind,  will  always  be  able 


110  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

to  control  the  action  of  our  Government,  unless  that  Govern- 
ment is  directed  by  strict  principles  of  justice  and  of  the 
public  welfare.  The  banks  will  favor  a  course  of  special 
and  partial  legislation,  in  order  to  increase  their  power — "  for 
even  the  good  want  power ;  "  they  will  never  cease  to  ask 
for  more,  as  long  as  there  is  more,  that  can  be  wrung  from 
the  toiling  masses  of  the  American  people. 

Such  a  power  should  never  be  allowed  to  go  out  from  the 
entire  and  complete  control  of  the  people's  Government. 
The  struggle  with  this  money-power,  intrenched  in  the 
special  privileges  of  banks,  has  been  going  on  from  the  be- 
ginning of  the  history  of  this  country.  It  has  engaged  the 
attention  of  our  wisest  and  most  patriotic  statesmen.  Frank- 
lin, Jefferson,  "Webster,  Calhoun,  Jackson  have  all  spoken 
of  the  danger  of  such  a  power  and  the  necessity  of  guard- 
ing against  it.  ... 

The  present  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Sherman,  speaking 
in  the  Senate,  when  the  subject  of  regulating  the  currency 
was  under  consideration,  declared  it  to  be  a  fact,  that  "  every 
citizen  of  the  United  States  had  conformed  his  business  to 
the  legal  tender  clause."  That  Senator  further  declared,  as 
appears  by  the  Congressional  Record^  that  "  if  the  bond- 
holder refuses  to  take  the  same  kind  of  money,  with  which 
he  bought  the  bonds,  he  is  an  extortioner  and  a  repudiator. 
.  .  .  .  There  is  110  such  burdensome  loan  negotiated  by 
any  civilized  nation  in  the  world  as  our  five-twenty  bonds, 
if  they  are  to  be  paid  in  gold."  And  yet  these  very  six  per 
cent,  bonds,  that  were  issued  under  a  law,  that  made  them 
payable  in  the  currency  of  the  country,  have  by  a  most 
cruel  and  unaccountable  change  in  the  law,  been  made  pay- 
able in  gold — the  very  bonds  which  had  been  sold  at  from 
forty  to  sixty  dollars  in  gold  for  one  hundred  in  currency, 
thereby  causing  a  debt,  that,  now  hangs  like  a  millstone  on 
the  neck  of  the  nation.  It  should  always  be  remembered 
that  debt,  in  all  the  ages  of  the  world,  has  been  the  most 
effectual  means  for  holding  the  mass  of  mankind  in  a  species 
of  enslavement. 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  Ill 

Within  my  own  recollection  unmarried  white  men  could 
be  sold  for  debt  in  the  State  of  Connecticut ;  so  that  debt 
is  a  species  of  slavery,  as  commerce  is  a  kind  of  commercial 
war.  It  is  a  war  of  interests,  as  all  nations  are  using  their 
highest  arts  to  buy  as  cheap  and  sell  as  dear  as  they  can. 

Our  Government  can  only  regain  its  former  prosperity  as 
a  nation  by  adopting  a  similar  national  policy  to  that,  which 
has  made  and  protected  the  industries  of  France. 

One  of  the  causes,  that  brought  on  the  Revolutionary  War, 
as  will  appear  by  the  following  statement,  were  the  laws, 
that  were  passed  by  England  expressly  to  deprive  her  col- 
onies of  the  right  to  manufacture  for  themselves : 

"  The  first  attempt  at  manufacture  in  the  American  col- 
onies was  followed  by  interference  on  the  part  of  the  Brit- 
ish Legislature.  ...  In  1710,  the  House  of  Commons 
declared,  that  the  erecting  manufactories  in  the  colonies 
tended  to  lessen  their  dependence  on  Great  Britain.  In  1732, 
the  exportation  of  hats  from  province  to  province,  and  the 
number  of  apprentices,  were  limited.  ...  In  1750,  the 
erection  of  any  mill  or  engine  for  slitting  or  rolling  iron 
was  prohibited.  ...  In  1765,  the  exportation  of  art- 
izans  from  Great  Britain  was  prohibited,  under  a  heavy  pen- 
alty. ...  In  1781,  utensils,  required  for  the  manufac- 
ture of  wool  or  silk,  were  prohibited.  ...  In  1782,  the 
prohibition  was  extended  to  artificers  in  printing  calicoes, 
muslins,  or  linens,  or  in  making  implements,  used  in  their 
manufacture.  '  .  .  .  In  1785,  the  prohibition  was  ex- 
tended to  tools,  used  in  iron  and  steel  manufacture,  and  to 
workmen  so  employed.  .  .  .  In  1799,  it  was  so  extended 
as  to  embrace  even  colliers. 

The  war  of  the  Eevolution  of  our  own  country  was 
brought  on  by  a  war  of  commercial  interests.  It  was  a  war 
that  showed  a  determination  on  the  part  of  the  mother 
country  to  keep  her  colonies  entirely  dependent  on  England 
for  all  forms  of  manufactured  articles.  Laws  were  enacted 
to  prevent  the  colonies  from  manufacturing  out  of  their  own 
good  raw  materials  things  indispensable  for  their  own  use, 


112  COIN  AKD  PAPEE  CUEEENCY. 

and   necessary   to   give   employment   to   those,   who   have 
nothing  to  sell  but  their  own  labor. 

Washington,  Franklin,  Jefferson,  and  the  Revolutionary 
fathers  were  men,  who  could  see  how  utterly  impossible  it 
would  be  for  the  American  people  to  buy  anything  cheap 
from  foreign  countries,  that  must  be  bought  at  the  expense  of 
leaving  our  own  good  raw  materials  unused  and  our  own 
laborers  unemployed. 

Our  Constitution  has  declared,  that  Congress  shall  have 
power  to  make  all  laws,  which  shall  be  necessary  and  proper, 
to  lay  and  collect  taxes,  duties,  imports,  excises,  to  pay  the 
debts  and  provide  for  the  common  defence  and  the  general 
welfare  of  these  United  States.  Also  "to  borrow  money 
on  the  credit  of  these  United  States." 

It  was  by  this  constitutional  power,  vested  in  Congress, 
that  all  forms  of  Treasury  notes  were  issued  and  used  as 
so  many  dollars  of  legal  money  of  the  country.  At  the 
close  of  the  war  of  the  Rebellion,  our  Government  found 
itself  encumbered  with  promises  to  pay  that,  which  it  did 
not  possess  and  could  not  command,  only  as  the  amount 
could  be  drawn  from  the  people  in  some  form  of  taxation. 
The  promise  to  pay  should  never  have  been  made.  It 
should  have  been  a  promise  to  receive,  instead  of  a  promise 
to  pay  tokens  of  debt,  which  the  Government  had  been  com- 
pelled to  pay  out  as  money  in  its  struggle  for  the  nation's 
life.  It  was  a  currency,  that  had  proved  itself,  as  President 
Grant  had  declared  it  to  be,  "  the  best  money,  that  our  country 
had  ever  possessed,  .  .  .  that  there  was  no  more  of  it 
in  circulation,  than  what  is  required  for  the  dullest  business 
season  of  the  year." 

These  facts  being  established  by  a  condition  of  unsur- 
passed national  prosperity,  that  prevailed  throughout  our 
whole  country  at  the  close  of  a  great  and  terrible  war. 
After  such  a  demonstration  of  the  strength,  wealth  and 
power  of  a  nation,  there  was  no  good  reason  for  acts  of 
legislation  avowedly  to  strengthen  the  credit  of  a  nation, 
that  had  carried  on  such  a  war  and  obtained  such  a  victory. 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  113 

"What  must  the  American  people  think,  when  they  come 
to  know  and  understand,  that  a  governmental  policy  has  been 
adopted  which  has  taken  from  the  people  their  currency,  that 
was  f  urnished  by  the  people  without  cost,  and  turned  into 
such  an  oppressive  debt,  as  now  burdens  and  paralyzes  the 
industries  of  the  country  ? 

The  amount  of  currency,  so  found  in  circulation  at  the 
close  of  the  war,  should  never  have  been  allowed  to  increase 
or  diminish,  only  as  per  capita  with  the  increase  of  the  in- 
habitants of  the  country. 

Such  a  currency  should  have  been  made  receivable  for  all 
forms  of  taxes,  duties  and  debts.  That  would  have  made 
our  national  paper  money  as  much  more  valuable,  than  gold 
in  proportion  as  it  would  be  more  easily  and  cheaply  handled 
in  large  sums. 

Our  national  currency  must  be  made  receivable  for  all 
purposes  throughout  the  country,  and  interconvertible  with 
three  per  cent.  Government  bonds;  it  would  then,  like 
the  consols  of  England,  soon  become  an  ever-strengthening 
bond  of  national  union.  Such  a  currency  would  have  been 
worth  more  to  the  American  people,  than  all  the  gold  mines, 
that  had  ever  been  discovered  on  the  continent  of  America.* 

*  The  following  is  a  statement  of  the  interest  of  money  paid  by  the 
United  States  since  the  close  of  the  war  of  the  Rebellion.  The  following 
statement  shows,  that  $1,422,057,577  has  been  paid  in  interest  in 
llf  years : 

Principal— Interest-bearing $1,717,642,130 

Non  interest-bearing 473,923,757 

ta,191>5e5,887 

Interest  due  on  above 33,092,616 

$2,224,658,503 
Less  cash  in  Treasury 154,299,886 

Debt  at  May  1,    1877 $2,070,358,617 

Debt  at  July  7,  1866- 2,783,425,879 

Reduction  since  July  1,  1866  (10  10-12  years) $713,067,262 

Since  the  close  of  the  war,  or  from  July  1,  1865  to  April  1,  1877  (llf      , 
8 


114  COIN  AND   PAPEK   CTJKKENCY. 

I  hold  our  Government  bound  to  give  back  to  the  people 
their  small  currency,  that  was  costing  them  nothing,  and  then 
call  in  the  silver  currency,  that  has  been  put  in  its  place  at  a 
cost  of  $31,738,400  paid  for  silver  up  to  April  20,  1877. 
This  silver  should  be  immediately  withdrawn,  and  used  in 
the  purchase  of  foreign  bonds,  thus  saving  for  the  American 
people  an  amount  of  interest,  if  compounded,  that  would 
pay  the  national  debt  several  times  in  one  hundred  years, 
and  at  the  same  time  give  the  country  a  more  convenient 
currency,  which  would  be  more  than  paid  for  by  the  amount, 
that  would  be  worn  out  and  lost  by  its  use.  If  silver  change 
is  ever  needed,  it  can  be  had  with  only  the  cost  of  coining  it 
by  the  Government,  as  nearly  all  the  silver,  produced  in  the 
country,  will  go  into  coins,  whenever  the  Government  will 
coin  it  without  cost  to  its  owners. 

I  find  myself  compelled  to  agree  with  Senator  Jones, 
where  he  says  that  "  the  present  is  the  acceptable  time  to 
undo  the  unwitting  and  blundering  work  of  1873.  .  .  . 
We  cannot,  we  dare  not,  avoid  speedy  action  on  the  sub- 
ject. Not  only  does  reason,  justice  and  authority  unite  in 
urging  us  to  retrace  our  steps,  but  the  organic  law  commands 
us  to  do  so,  and  the  presence  of  peril  enjoins  what  the  law 
commands" 


years),  the  interest  on  the  public  debt  was  $1,422,057,567,  or  $121,000,000 
per  annum ! 

The  universal  cry  over  the  land  is  for  employment.  When  well  em- 
ployed the  people  are  well  clothed,  well  fed  and  well  housed.  The 
adjustment  of  the  fiscal  question — NOT  for  one  class,  but  for  the  masses — 
must  be  made  ere  prosperity  is  ours.  The  recall  from  Europe  of  our 
gold  bonds  (by  sale  of  commodities,  placing  them  at  low  interest)  and  sub- 
stituting greenbacks  for  national  bank-notes,  would  remove  grievous  bur- 
dens, providing  employment  by  stimulating  our  depressed  industries. 

Will  President  Hayes  inaugurate  this  just  policy,  insuring  general  pros- 
perity and  spontaneous  "resumption,"  or  the  par  of  paper  with  gold? 

The  true  remedy  for  national  relief  from  the  enslavement  of  debt,  with 
its  burden  of  taxation,  is  the  substitution  of  greenbacks  for  national 
bank-notes. 

The  national  banks  have  received  since  1866  twenty-one  millions  of 
dollars  interest  on  bonds  deposited  with  the  Government. 


COIN   AND   PAPER  CURRENCY.  115 

I  have  ventured  this  long  letter  in  the  firm  belief,  that 
the  adoption  of  a  permanent,  unfluctuating  national  currency, 
as  before  stated,  equal  to  the  amount  actually  found  in  cir- 
culation at  the  close  of  the  war,  and  that  amount  should 
never  be  increased  or  diminished,  only  as  per  capita  with  the 
increase  of  the  inhabitants  of  our  country — such  a  measure 
of  all  internal  values,  with  a  revenue  tariff  of  specific  duties 
to  be  obtained  from  the  smallest  number  of  articles,  that 
will  give  the  amount  needed  for  an  economical  government 
— such  a  national  policy  would  introduce  prosperity  once 
more  into  the  trade,  commerce  and  finances  of  this  country. 

NOTE. — Expansion  versus  Contraction. — The  following 
statistics  from  the  London  Economist  demonstrate  the  fact, 
that  the  expansion  of  French  Government  legal  tenders  has 
kept  pace  with  the  accumulation  of  specie,  and  materially 
develops  the  home  interests  of. that  country: 

"Of  legal  tenders  in  April,  1869,  the  circulation  was 
214  millions  dollars,  and  in  April,  1876,  494  millions,  being 
an  increase  in  seven  years  of  280  millions,  or  130  per 
cent. ! 

Of  specie  and  bullion  in  December,  1869,  the  stock  was 
247  millions  dollars,  and  in  November,  1876,  432  millions, 
or  an  increase  in  seven  years  of  185  millions,  or  75  per 
cent.  ! 

The  striking  prosperity  of  French  industries  under  the 
above  fiscal  policy  augurs  strongly  for  an  expansion  equal  to 
the  amount  found  in  circulation  at  the  close  of  the  war,  and 
against  a  contraction." 

Our  Government  has,  from  its  origin,  neglected  to  perform 
one  of  the  most  important  duties,  enjoined  on  it  by  the  Con- 
stitution, where  it  says,  that  Congress  shall  have  power,  not 
only  to  coin  money,  but  to  regulate  the  value  thereof.  This 
can  be  and  should  have  been  done  by  an  Act  of  Congress  to 
regulate  the  value  of  money  by  fixing  the  amount,  that  can 
be  legally  collected  as  interest  for  the  use  of  money. 


116  COIN  AND   PAPEE  CURRENCY. 

When  such  an  Act  has  been  provided  to  prevent  extortion- 
ate demands  for  the  use  or  interest  on  money,  and  when  the 
law  has  been  repealed,  that  is  now  paralyzing  the  country 
with  the  terrible  fact,  that  some  fifteen  hundred  millions  of 
dollars,  now  due  from  the  people  to  the  banks,  with  all  the 
other  debts,  that  are  to  become  due  in  1879,  are  ~by  law  made 
payable  in  gold,  then  the  way  will  be  opei^ed  for  a  restora- 
tion of  confidence  and  a  permanent  financial  relief.  The  law 
contracting  the  currency  is  now  taking  from  the  people  their 
legal  money,  costing  the  Government  and  the  people  nothing, 
and  then  converting  this  same  currency  into  a  national  debt, 
for  which  the  people  are  to  be  taxed  for  the  next  thirty 
years.  It  should  never  be  forgotten,  that  the  first  sixty  mil- 
lions of  Treasury  notes  were  issued  and  made  "  receivable  in 
payments  of  duties  on  imports  a  lawful  money  and  a  legal 
tender" 

The  fact  that  the  sixty  millions  then  issued  did  continue 
receivable  at  the  Treasury  on  a  par  with  gold,  when  gold 
was  selling  at  285  in  currency,  this  fact  is  proof  positive, 
that  had  the  Government  made  all  the  greenbacks  full  legal 
tender,  instead  of  sending  them  out  partially  demonetized 
and  repudiated,  they  would  never  have  fallen  below  par.  It 
was  the  partial  demonetization  and  the  contraction  of  the 
currency,  that  has  so  effectually  destroyed  confidence  and 
dried  up  the  sources  of  both  production  and  consumption. 
The  people  are  deprived  of  tJieir  currency,  which  had  for 
years  formed  the  life  blood  of  the  trade  and  commerce  of  our 
country. 

My  efforts  in  all  I  have  written,  have  been  to  call  and 
fix  the  attention  of  the  American  people  on  those  truths 
and  principles,  so  grandly  set  forth  and  declared  in  the  Pre- 
amble to  the  Constitution,  formed  for  us  by  the  Fathers 
and  founders  of  a  Government,  intended  to  establish  jus- 
tice as  the  true  and  only  sure  means,  by  which  the  general 
welfare  of  the  American  people  can  be  substantially  pro- 
moted. 

Hoping  and  believing,  that  your  best  efforts  will  be  given 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  117 

to  secure  for  our  beloved  country  the  blessings  of  a  good 
Government, 

I  remain,  yours,  with  great  respect, 

PETER  COOPER. 


NEW  YORK,  August  6,  1877. 
His  EXCELLENCY  R.  B.  HAYES, 

HONORED  SIR — Although  I  have  but  lately  addressed  you 
an  open  letter  on  the  sad  state  of  the  industrial  and  financial 
conditions  of  our  common  country,  and  the  causes,  that  have 
brought  it  about ;  yet  the  events,  that  have  since  transpired, 
while  they  have  given  additional  emphasis  to  that  appeal, 
justify  me  in  once  more  addressing  you  on  the  same  subject. 

Surely,  the  peaceful  expostulations  and  complaints  of  so 
many  thousands  of  your  fellow-citizens,  going  up  from  every 
part  of  this  distressed  country,  not  to  speak  of  the  violence 
and  lawlessness,  which  this  distress  has  occasioned,  not  only 
appeal  to  your  humanity  and  patriotism,  but  call  for  the 
most  earnest  and  instant  action  on  the  part  of  the  Govern- 
ment, of  which  you  are  the  chief  Executive. 

From  your  past  patriotic  life  and  action,  and  from  your 
present  wise  and  conciliating  conduct  in  the  political  affairs 
of  this  country,  we  have  every  reason  to  hope  a  new  and 
straight  path  of  relief  will  be  found  for  the  manifest  evils, 
under  which  this  country  is  laboring. 

It  is  with  this  hope,  and,  at  my  advanced  age,  with  no 
other  motive  than  the  welfare  of  our  beloved  country,  that 
I  unite  with  thousands  of  my  fellow-citizens  in  calling  your 
attention,  and  that  of  your  political  advisers,  not  only  to  the 
facts,  which  are  obvious  enough,  but  to  the  causes  and  the 
remedies,  that  ought  to  be  considered  in  devising  the  best 
means  of  curing  the  present  evils.  The  facts  themselves  are 
appalling  to  any  patriotic  heart. 

More  than  two  hundred  thousand  men,  within  the  last 
few  weeks,  have  joined  in  " strikes"  on  the  various  railroad 
lines,  the  workshops  and  the  mines  of  the  country,  on  ac- 


118  COIN  AND   PAPER  CUEEENCY. 

count  of  further  reduction  in  their  wages,  already  reduced 
to  the  living  point.  That  some  of  these  strikes  have  been 
attended  with  lawless  and  unjustifiable  violence,  only  shows 
the  intensity  of  the  evils  complained  of,  and  the  despair  of 
the  sufferers.  For  four  years  past,  since  the  "  panic  of  1873," 
millions  of  men  and  women,  in  this  hitherto  rich  and  pros- 
perous country,  have  been  thrown  out  of  employment,  or 
living  on  precarious  and  inadequate  wages,  have  felt  embit- 
tered with  a  lot,  in  which  neither  economy  nor  industry,  nor 
a  cheerful  willingness  to  work  hard,  can  bring  any  allevia- 
tion. 

Is  it  to  be  wondered  at,  that  enforced  idleness  has  made 
tramps  of  so  many  of  our  laboring  population,  or  induced 
them  to  join  the  criminal  and  dangerous  classes  ? 

During  this  same  period,  immigration  into  this  country 
of  the  hardy  and  industrious  of  all  nations,  who  have  hither- 
to built  up  our  country,  has,  in  a  great  measure,  stopped, 
while  thousands  of  artisans  and  mechanics,  whom  a  prosper- 
ous country  cannot  spare,  are  emigrating,  to  other  countries. 
Our  manufactories  are,  many  of  them,  closed,  or  running  at 
a  loss,  or  giving  starvation  prices  to  their  operatives.  Our 
merchants  are  demanding  the  reduction  of  their  rents,  dis- 
charging many  of  their  employes,  and  such  as  are  in  debt 
are  fast  going  into  bankruptcy.  The  mining  and  railroad 
interests  of  the  country,  xon  which  the  income  and  the  em- 
ployment of  so  many  thousands  depend,  are  fast  succumb- 
ing to  the  general  failure  in  the  finances  of  the  country,  so 
that  their  stocks  have  become  depreciated  or  worthless,  and 
their  employes  discharged  or  mutinous  on  account  of  re- 
duced wages.  Real  estate  has  depreciated  to  less  than  half 
of  what  it  would  have  brought  four  years  ago  ;  much  of  it 
cannot  be  sold  for  any  price,  and  mortgages  of  one-quarter 
its  value,  if  foreclosed,  swallow  up  the  whole.  The  thriv- 
ing and  enterprising  farmer  of  the  West,  especially,  feels 
this  rise  in  the  value  of  money,  as  compared  with  labor  or 
property.  With  the  hardy  toil  of  years,  he  has  opened  and 
improved  his  farm,  and  the  comparative  small  loan,  which 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.          119 

laid  but  a  light  weight  on  the  resources  of  his  land  in  pros- 
perous times,  and  with  a  sufficiency  of  money,  is  now  threat- 
ening to  swallow  up  the  labor  of  his  life  !  Even  the  banks 
and  the  loaning  institutions,  not  being  able  to  invest  their 
money  on  "  good  securities,"  are  embarrassed  on  both  sides 
— the  failure  of  their  debtors,  that  throws  so  many  of  the 
securities  on  their  hands,  and  makes  bonds  and  mort- 
gages a  "  glut  in  the  market,"  and  the  difficulty  of  making 
any  new  loans  or  investments,  so  that  money  "  goes  a  beg- 
ging "  at  one  and  a  half  and  two  per  cent. ! 

But  these  moneyed  men  are  very  patient  with  their  trou- 
bles in  this  respect,  for  they  know,  that  money  is  appreciat- 
ing in  value  all  the  time  !  It  may  be  now  that  loanable 
capital,  on  good  security,  is  gathered  largely  in  the  moneyed 
centres,  and  much  of  it  comparatively  idle ;  but  this  is  no 
great  hardship  to  those,  who  own  the  capital,  in  the  presence 
of  the  fact,  that  money  is  appreciating  in  its  relative  value, 
while  waiting  for  active  investment.  This  is  the  secret  why 
money  seeks  no  active  investment  now,  but  only  good  se- 
curity, or  idleness.  The  country  at  large,  its  various  indus- 
trial, enterprises  and  its  labor  are  in  want  of  money.  Is 
there  any  fact  more  obvious  than  this  ?  Nor  is  it  the  rich 
that  want  money,  but  the  poor,  as  a  necessary  condition  for 
selling  the  labor",  which  is  their  sole  possession.  Hence,  to 
the  poor  man,  cheap  money  is  equivalent  to  cheap  bread. 

Ever  since  1865,  this  country  has  been  losing  its  money. 

During  the  last  ten  years,  thousands  of  millions  of  money 
have  been  swallowed  in  Government  and  railroad  bonds  and 
other  securities,  and  in  importations  which,  till  lately,  have 
far  exceeded  our  exportations.  It  is  a  fact  on  record  in  the 
books  of  the  United  States  Treasury,  and  by  such  authori- 
ties as  Spaulding  in  his  "  History  of  the  Currency,"  Mr. 
Maynard,  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Banking  and  Cur- 
rency in  Congress,  and  Spinner,  Assistant  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  that  this  country  had,  up  to  the  year  1865,  issued 
in  different  forms  of  currency  and  treasury  notes,  current  as 
money  among  the  people,  $2,192,395,527  !  This  vast  sum 


120  COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

t 

had,  on  the  first  of  November,  1873,  shrunk  to  $631,488,- 
676  (see  Congressional  Record,  March  31,  1874). 

In  the  year  1865,  there  was  in  the  hands  of  the  people,  as 
a  currency,  $58  per  head  ;  in  1875  the  currency  of  all  kinds 
was  only  a  little  more  than  $17  per  head. 

You  may  call  this  currency  a  vast  debt  of  the  people,  as 
it  was  incurred  by  the  Government  to  save  the  life  of  the 
nation.  But  it  was  money — every  dollar  of  it.  It  was  paid 
by  the  Government  "  for  value  received ;"  it  was  used  by 
the  people  to  pay  their  debts,  to  measure  the  value  of  their 
property,  and,  as  your  present  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
Sherman,  said  in  his  seat  in  the  Senate,  "  every  citizen  of 
the  United  States  had  conformed  his  business  to  the  legal 
tender  clause." 

This  currency  was  also  the  creature  of  law,  and  under 
the  entire  control  of  the  Government,  but  held  in  trust  for 
the  benefit  of  the  people,  as  are  all  its  functions.  Was  it 
either  just  or  humane  to  allow  $1,100,000,000  of  this  cur- 
rency, a  large  part  bearing  no  interest,  but  paying  labor, 
and  fructifying  every  business  enterprise,  to  be  absorbed 
into  bonds  in  the  space  of  eight  years,  bearing  a  heavy  inter- 
est,'of  which  the  bondholder  bore  no  share  ?  (See  Spauld- 
ing's  "History  of  the  Currency.")  -The  Government 
seemed  to  administer  this  vast  currency,  as  if  there  was  but 
one  interest  in  the  nation  to  be  promoted,  and  that  the  profit 
of  those,  who  desired  to  fund  their  money  with  the  greatest 
security,  and  to  make  money  scarce  and  of  high  rate  of 
interest !  TJiis  is  tlie  issue  of  the  hour  /  this  is  the  battle  of 
the  people  and  for  the  people,  in  which  the  present  adminis- 
tration is  called  upon  to  declare  vihich  side  it  will  take.  If 
this  policy  was  unjust  and  ruinous  at  the  first,  it  is  unjust 
and  ruinous  now.  If  it  has  led  us  from  prosperity  into 
adversity,  the  only  course  is  to  retrace  our  steps,  to  stop 
this  funding  and  give  the  people  back  their  money, 
justly  earned  and  hardly  won  by  the  toils,  perils  and  sacri- 
fices of  the  people.  But  as  this  vast  and  life-giving  cur- 
rency has  now  gone  irretrievably  into  bonds,  and  the  bonds 


<S 

*' 
-*, 

-3 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY.  121 

have  gone  largely  abroad  for  importations,  that  have  still 
further  depressed  the  industry  of  our  people  by  buying 
abroad  what  we  could  and  should  have  manufactured  at 
home,  I  would  respectfully  suggest  the  following  policy  for 
your  administration  in  the  present  emergency  and  for  the 
future  prosperity  of  the  people  of  this  country : 

First.  Let  the  Government  give  immediate  relief  to  un- 
employed labor,  either  through  definite  methods  of  help, 
given  to  settlers  of  unoccupied  lauds  in  the  West,  or  by 
great  and  obvious  public  improvements,  which  are 'seen  to  be 
necessary  to  the  prosperity  and  safety  of  the  country — such 
as  a  North-western  and  a  South-western  Eailroad.  Both 
these  methods  might  be  used,  in  view  of  the  great  distress, 
now,  of  the  laboring  classes.  The  railroads  will  invite  set- 
tlements, protect  the  country  from  Indian  wars,  more  costly 
than  the  railroads  themselves,  and  give  employment  and  the 
money,  which  will  enable  the  poor  man  to  settle  the  lands. 
Even  State  and  municipal  help  might  be  evoked  to  this  end 
of  employing  labor,  by  issuing  currency,  for  the  bonds  of 
States  and  Municipalities,  that  could  employ  labor  profitably 
in  any  local  improvements. 

Secondly.  Restore  the  silver  coinage  as  a  legal  tender ; 
and  while  it  swells  the  currency,  it  may  be  made  as  light  as 
paper,  for  transportation,  by  "  Bills  of  Exchange,"  or  by  a 
currency  that  represents  silver.  The  demonetization  of  sil- 
ver was  a  trick  of  the  enemies  of  the  poor  man's  currency. 
The  remonetization  of  silver  will  be  a  great  relief  now,  in 
the  depression  of  all  business,  if  not  the  final  and  best 
measure. 

Thirdly.  Let  us  adopt  a  permanent  policy  of  public 
finance,  that  shall  hereafter  control  both  the  volume  and  the 
value  of  the  national  currency,  in  the  interest  of  the  whole 
people,  and  not  of  a  class.  Let  us  have  a  national  currency 
fully  honored  by  the  Government,  and  not  as  now,  partially, 
demonetized — the  sole  currency  and  legal  tender  of  the 
country,  taken  for  all  duties  and  taxes,  and  interconvertible 
with  the  bonds,  at  a  low  but  equitable  rate  of  interest.  This 


122  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

will  forever  take  the  creation  of  currency  and  its  extinc- 
tion out  of  the  hands  of  banks,  and  those  interested  in 
making  it  scarce  and  high,  and  put  it  completely  under  the 
control  of  law  and  the  interests  of  the  people. 

Fourthly.  Let  us  promote  and  instruct  industry  all  over 
the  land'  by  founding,  under  National,  State  and  municipal 
encouragement,  INDUSTRIAL  SCHOOLS  of  every  kind,  that  can 
advance  skill  in  labor.  The  rich  need  the  literary  and  pro- 
fessional school  and  colleges,  and  they  should  have  them ; 
but  the  poor  need  the  industrial  school  of  art  and  science  • 
and  it  should  be  made  the  duty  of  the  local  governments  to 
provide  a  practical  education  for  the  mass  of  the  people,  as 
the  best  method  of  "  guaranteeing  to  every  State  a  republi- 
can form  of  government." 

Fifthly.  The  Government  can  do  much  toward  promoting 
the  industry  of  this  people,  and  encouraging  capital  to  enter 
upon  works  of  manufacture,  by  a  judicious  tariff  upon  all 
importations,  of  which  we  have  the  raw  material  in  abun- 
dance, and  the  labor  ready  to  be  employed  in  the  produc- 
tion. It  is  no  answer  to  this  to  say,  "  Buy  where  you  can 
cheapest."  I  have  said  before,  We  cannot,  as  a  nation, 
buy  anything  cheap,  that  leaves  our  own  good  raw  materials 
unused  and  our  own  labor  unemployed. 

Sixthly.  Let  us  have  a  civil  service  -as  well  organized  and 
specific  as  the  military  or  naval  service.  Let  us  take  the 
civil  service  out  of  mere  political  partisanship,  and  put  such 
appointments  upon  the  ground  of  honesty,  capacity  and 
educational  fitness,  so  that  no  man  can  hold  his  office  and 
receive  its  emoluments  without  a  faithful  discharge  of  the 
duties  prescribed  by  the  law.  The  noble  and  efficient  re- 
cognition, that  you  have  already  given  to  this  principle,  in 
divorcing  politics  from  the  ordinary  clerical  and  civil  ser- 
vice of  the  country,  entitles  you  to  the  thanks  of  every  cit- 
izen. 

By  these  methods  of  immediate  relief  and  future  admin- 
istration, we  may  pass  safely,  I  think,  the  great  crisis 
through  which  our  beloved  country  is  now  laboring. 


COIN  A1STD   PAPEE  CURRENCY.  123 

"The  producing  cause  of  all  prosperity,"  says  Daniel 
Webster,  "  is  labor,  labor,  labor.  .  .  . 

The  Government  was  made  to  protect  this  industry — to 
give  it  both  encouragement  and  security.  To  this  very  end, 
with  this  precise  object  in  view,  power  was  given  to  Con- 
gress over  the  currency  arid  over  the  money  of  the  country." 

Though  the  influences,  that  are  now  working  against  the 
rights  of  labor  and  the  true  interests  of  a  Republican  Gov- 
ernment, are  insidious  and  concealed  under  plausible  reasons, 
yet  the  danger  to  our  free  institutions  now  is  no  less  than 
in  the  inception  of  the  Rebellion,  that  shook  our  Republic  to 
its  centre.  It  is  only  another  oligarchy,  another  enslaving 
power,  that  is  asserting  itself  against  the  interests  of  the 
whole  people.  There  is  fast  forming  in  this  country  an  aris- 
tocracy of  wealth — the  worst  form  of  aristocracy,  that  can 
curse  the  prosperity  of  any  country.  For  such  an  aristocracy 
has  no  country — "  absenteeism,"  living  abroad,  while  they 
draw  their  income  from  the  country,  is  one  of  its  common 
characteristics.  Such  an  aristocracy  is  without  soul  and 
without  patriotism.  Let  us  save  our  country  from  this,  its 
most  potent,  and,  as  I  hope,  its  last  enemy.  Let  your  fel- 
low-citizens beseech  you,  Mr.  President,  to  consider  well 
what  the  crisis  of  the  country  demands  of  you  and  your 
political  advisers,  not  losing  sight  of  the  fact,  that  there  are 
great  wrongs,  which  must  be  righted  in  the  administration  of 
the  finances  of  this  country,  for  the  last  twelve  years.  Old 
issues  of  North  and  South  are,  in  a  great  measure,  passing 
away,  and  that  patriotism  and  far-sightedness  which  has  so 
far  guided  your  administration,  we  hope  and  trust,  will  find 
a  way  to  relieve  the  present  distress  of  the  country.  There 
is  no  section  of  our  common  country,  that  needs  so  much  the 
reviving  influence  of  an  abundant  and  a  sound  currency,  as 
the  South.  The  Southern  people  h#ve  the  finest  natural 
resources  our  country  affords;  every  facility  for  manu- 
facture—  the  material,  labor  and  water-power  indefinite. 
They  need  only  money,  wisely  distributed  among  its  work- 
ing and  enterprising  population ;  and  it  was  well  said,  lately, 


124  COIN   AND   PAPEE  CUEEENCY. 

by  one  of  the  Southern  statesmen,  that  the  "  Government 
had  impoverished,  discomfited  and  crushed  the  South  more 
ly  its  financial  policy,  since  peace  was  declared,  than  by  its 
arms  during  the  whole  war  of  Rebellion  "  / 

If  the  people  can  look  for  no  relief  from  the  present  Con- 
gress and  Administration — if  those,  who  now  sway  the 
financial  interests  of  the  country,  cannot  see  their  great  op- 
portunity— then  new  men  must  be  chosen  by  the  people 
whom  they  can  trust  to  make  laws  and  execute  measures 
that  "  shall  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  themselves  and 
their  posterity." 


LABOR  PROSPERITY  IN  ENGLAND  FROM  1797  TO  1815. 
Extract  from  MARVIN  WARREN'S  Work  on  American  Labor. 

Sir  Archibald  Alison,  author  of  the  History  of  Modern 
Europe,  says :  "  The  next  eighteen  years  of  the  war,  from 
1797  to  1815,  were,  as  all  the  world  knows,  the  most  glori- 
ous, and  taken  as  a  whole,  the  most  prosperous,  which  Great 
Britain  had  ever  known.  Ushered  in  by  a  combination  of 
circumstances  the  most  calamitous,  both  with  reference  to 
external  security  and  internal  industry,  it  .terminated  in  a 
blaze  of  glory  and  flood  of  prosperity,  which  have  never 
since  the  beginning  of  the  world  descended  upon  any  nation. 
Prosperity  universal  and  unheard  of  pervaded  every  part  of 
the  empire.  Our  colonial  possessions  encircled  the  Earth ; 
the  whole  West  India  Islands  had  fallen  into  our  hands ; 
an  empire  of  sixty  millions  of  men  in  Hindoostan  acknowl- 
edged our  rule  ;  Java  was  added  to  our  eastern  possessions ; 
and  the  flag  of  France  had  disappeared  from  every  station 
beyond  the  sea.  Agriculture,  commerce  and  manufactures 
at  home  had  increased  in  an  unparalleled  ratio ;  the  landed 
proprietors  were  in  affluence ;  wealth  to  an  unheard  of  ex- 
tent had  been  created  among  the  farmers ;  the  soil,  daily  in- 
creasing in  fertility  and  breadth  of  cultivated  lands,  had 
become  almost  adequate  to  the  maintenance  of  a  rapidly  in- 


COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY.  125 

creasing  population  ;  onr  exports,  imports  and  tonnage  had 
more  than  doubled  since  the  war  began." 

What  caused  this  prosperity  ?  Exactly  the  same  thing  in 
kind  that  causes  the  present  French  prosperity.  This  eighteen 
years  of  English  prosperity  commenced  in  1797,  when  the 
Bank  of  England  was  authorized  by  the  Government  to  sus- 
pend specie  payment,  and  continued  just  so  long  as  it  was 
not  insisted  upon  by  any  party,  that  the  bank  should  be  re- 
quired to  pay  specie,  and  ceased  immediately  as  soon  as  that 
requirement  was  seriously  urged.  The  money  of  England 
during  that  eighteen  years  was  irredeemable  paper  money ; 
it  was  rag  baby  in  its  nature.  The  very  kind  of  money,  that 
the  ministers  of  finance  in  our  country  tell  us  is  a  sore  evil 
to  have.  True,  like  our  present  greenback  money,  it  was 
inferior  to  the  French  paper  money,  because  it  was  not  a 
full  legal  tender  for  all  debts  in  the  country.  Of  course, 
then,  it  depreciated  some  in  value  as  compared  to  gold,  and 
did  not  have  that  full  and  complete  beneficial  effect,  in  dis- 
pensing its  benefits  to  all  interests  and  to  everybody,  as  it 
otherwise  would,  and  as  the  French  money  does.  But  like 
the  French  money  in  one  respect,  it  was  not  redeemable  in 
specie  on  demand,  and  hence  it  could  be  and  was  issued  in 
quantities  for  the  most  part  to  adapt  itself  to  the  necessities 
of  labor  and  business.  Take  notice,  American  laborers,  that 
this  period  of  English  prosperity  lasted  just  the  eighteen 
years  of  time,  that  the  money  of  England  was  not  disturbed 
by  redeemability  in  specie,  nor  seriously  threatened  so  to  be, 
and  not  any  longer.  So  that  English  experience  and  French 
experience  as  to  what  causes  prosperity  accord  one  with  the 
other,  and  they  both  are  to  the  effect,  that  prosperity  comes 
at  once,  upon  the  liberation  of  the  money  or  currency  of  the 
country  from  being  redeemed  in  specie,  and  then  issued  in 
quantities,  suited  to  put  the  labor  of  the  country  all  into 
active  and  profitable  employment. 

And  take  notice,  also,  just  what  kind  of  prosperity  that 
was.  It  was  the  prosperity  of  labor ;  all  honest,  useful  labor. 
It  was  "  prosperity  universal  and  unheard  of,"  and  it  "  per- 


126  COIN   AND   PAPER   CUEEENCY. 

vaded  in  every  part  of  the  empire."  "Agriculture,  com- 
merce and  manufactures  at  home  had  increased  in  an  un- 
paralleled ratio."  And  take  notice,  American  farmers,  the 
landed  proprietors  were  in  affluence,  and  wealth  to  an  un- 
heard of  extent  had  been  created  among  the  farmers. 

And  I  say  this,  also,  that  there  was  not  in  that  English 
prosperity  anything  at  all  savoring  of  fiction,  or  wanting  of 
substantiality.  It  was  built  on  labor,  and  the  labor  stimu- 
lated by  honest  principles  of  finance,  that  simply  rewarded 
the  laborer,  instead  of  robbing  him.  If  those  principles  had 
been  followed  up  and  perfected,  and  kept  alive  in  the  laws 
of  the  country,  instead  of  being  supplanted  by  fraud  and 
fiction,  as  they  were  afterward  that  prosperity  would  have 
lasted  to  this  day,  and  would  last  as  much  longer  as  the 
true  principles  might  be  preserved.  And  so  in  our  own 
country,  we  cannot  only  have  that  prosperity,  but  we  can 
establish  it  upon  principles,  that  shall  make  it  enduring,  and 
that  is  the  business  of  the  true  men  of  this  generation. 

Why  was  it  that  just  in  that  eighteen  years  of  war  Eng- 
land authorized  her  national  banking  institution  to  suspend 
specie  payments  and  issue  money  in  quantities,  suited  to  the 
industrial  and  commercial  wants  and  prosperity  ?  It  was, 
because  Napoleon  was  then  pressing  her  by  his  military 
power,  and  the  very  existence  of  the  Government  and  na- 
tion itself  required  all  the  resources  of  the  nation  to  be 
brought  into  active  use  for  its  defence,  suspending  for  the 
time  being  the  avaricious  gains  of  the  monied  nobility.  As 
stated  above  by  the  historian,  this  eighteen  years  was 
"  ushered  in  by  a  combination  of  circumstances  the  most  ca- 
lamitous, both  with  reference  to  external  security  and  inter- 
nal industry."  Think  of  it.  All  this  prosperity  came,  not 
by  favored  circumstances,  but  in  spite  of  circumstances,  ex- 
ternal and  internal,  the  most  calamitous ;  all  simply  through 
the  power  of  honesty  and  truth,  in  the  money  of  the  coun- 
try. 

But  in  1815,  the  war  closed  by  the  capture  of  Napoleon 
at  Waterloo.  The  scourge  of  war  now  being  removed,  it 


COIN  AND   PAPEK  CURRENCY.  127 

seems  to  have  been  thought,  that  the  country  could  endure 
without  entire  destruction  a  scourge  far  worse  than  the 
war ;  and  the  Shylocks,  with  Sir  Kobert  Peel  at  their  head, 
or  as  an  associate,  began  to  insist  seriously  upon  a  law  for 
resumption  of  specie  payments.  And  then  what  took 
place  ? 

Let  Thomas  Doubleday,  in  his  Financial,  Monetary,  and 
Statistical  History  of  England,  tell  what  took  place.  He 
says  :  "  Prices  fell  on  a  sudden  to  a  ruinous  extent — banks 
broke — wages  fell  with  prices  of  manufactures  ;  and  before 
the  year  1816  had  come  to  a  close,  panic,  bankruptcy,  riot 
and  disaffection  had  spread  through  the  land.  Yast  bodies 
of  starving  and  discontended  artisans  now  congregated  to- 
gether and  demanded  reform  of  the  Parliament.  The  dis- 
contents, as  usual,  the  Government  put  down  by  an  armed 
force.  As  the  memorable  first  of  May,  1823,  drew  near, 
the  country  bankers,  as  well  as  the  Bank  of  England,  nat- 
urally prepared  themselves  by  a  gradual  narrowing  of  their 
circulation  for  the  dreaded  hour  of  gold  and  silver  pay- 
ments on  demand.  .  .  .  The  distress,  ruin,  and  bank- 
ruptcy, which  now  took  place,  were  universal,  affecting  both 
the  great  interests  of  land  and  trade." 

Peel  and  his  Shy  lock  backers  pressed  the  matter  of  the 
specie  resumption  law,  and  it  was  passed  in  1819,  requiring 
by  its  terms,  specie  payments  to  commence  May  1,  1823 — 
four  years.  Between  the  years  1815  and  1825,  inclusive,  by 
the  specie  resumption  law,  and  by  the  loss  of  confidence, 
growing  out  of  its  pendency,  more  than  four-fifths  of  the 
land-owners  of  England  lost  their  possessions.  The  num- 
ber of  land-owners  was  reduced  from  160,000  to  30,000. 
The  very  farmers,  who  had  accumulated  wealth  to  an  un- 
heard of  extent  in  the  eighteen  years  of  suspension,  now 
became  bankrupt  and  penniless. 

Wendell  Phillips,  in  a  letter  to  the  New  York  Legal  Ten- 
der Club,  dated  August  23, 18T5,  though  slightly  inaccurate 
in  two  or  three  historical  dates  and  some  other  forms  of  ex- 
pression, draws  a  faithful  sketch  of  this  English  resumption, 


128  COIN  AND   PAPER   CUEKENCY. 

as  compared  to  our  own,  now  in  progress  but  not  completed. 
The  following  is  an  extract  of  the  letter : 

"  History  is  repeating  itself.  England  never  knew  more 
prosperous  years  than  from  1800  to  1820,  during  which  she 
had  neither  gold  nor  wished  to  have  it,  nor  promised  to  pay 
gold  to  any  one  whatever.  All  that  while  she  extended  and 
contracted  her  currency  without  any  regard  whatever  to 
gold.  Her  enormous  trade  and  expenditures  were  all  paper, 
resting  on  credit  and  nothing  else.  We  had  similar  pros- 
perity during  the  war,  and  after  on  the  same  terms.  In 
1820,  England,  listening  to  theorists,  tried  to  put  this  new 
wine  into  old  bottles,  and  dragged  her  business  back  to 
methods  a  century  old — to  specie.  Bankruptcy,  the  very 
history  of  which  makes  the  blood  cold  to-day,  blighted  the 
empire.  It  took  half  a  generation  to  recover  from  the  mis- 
take. No  man  can  to-day  begin  to  show,  that  such  suffering 
was  necessary,  that  it  achieved  any  good,  or  that  it  effected 
any  change,  which  could  not  have  been  as  well  made  with- 
out it." 

The  object  was  not  to  have  the  paper  currency  redeemed 
in  specie  ;  there  was  really  no  desire  or  expectation  of  that ; 
but  simply  that  the  paper  money  be  driven  from  circulation, 
by  making  this  impossible  requirement  of  specie  payment 
in  respect  to  it,  thus  leaving  but  very  little  currency  in  cir- 
culation of  any  kind,  and  forcing  down  prices  of  labor  and 
property,  real  estate  especially,  to  almost  nothing,  rendering 
debtors  unable  to  pay  their  debts,  that  their  estates  might 
be  bought  in  at  forced  sales,  or  voluntary  to  prevent  the 
forced,  at  prices  ruinous,  and  quite  likely  still  leaving  them 
in  debt  and  without  means  to  pay. 

The  scheme  worked  like  a  charm.  By  it  under  the  forms 
and  sanction  of  law,  the  property  of  the  English  people  was 
gathered  up  in  vast  sweeping  accumulations,  and  handed 
over  to  the  nobility,  and  thus  was  the  genius  of  the  British 
society,  its  distinction  of  nobility  and  vassalage,  restored  in- 
tact. 

The  specie  resumption  law  of  this  country,  passed  in  Jan- 


COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  129 

nary,  18T5,  is  in  substance  and  design  a  copy  of  the  British 
law  of  1819,  above  mentioned.  Bear  in  mind  the  excuse  is 
to  redeem  the  paper  currency  in  specie,  the  real  object  is  to 
drive  from  circulation  the  currency  of  the  country,  reduce 
prices,  and  so  rob  the  debtor  class.  • 

But  let  us  look  at  the  matter.  What  will  the  national 
bank-notes  be  redeemable  in,  when  the  greenbacks  are  with- 
drawn and  burned  up  ?  The  bank-notes  must  be  redeem- 
able in  something,  else  they  will  be  worthless,  for  they  are 
not  a  legal  tender  for  debt,  as  the  greenback  money  is.  At 
present  the  bank-notes  are  redeemable  in  legal  tender  green- 
backs, and  that  makes  them  good.  But  the  greenbacks 
withdrawn  and  burned  up,  and  then  what  ?  Why,  the  bank- 
notes must  then  be  redeemable  in  specie  of  course,  as  the 
resumption  law  provides.  And  where  will  the  banks  get 
the  specie  to  redeem  with  ?  Some  of  the  strongest  of  them 
will  be  able  to  get  it,  and  continue  their  business.  But  it 
seems  to  us  the  bank-note  circulation  will  be  contracted 
instead  of  enlarged  under  the  operation  of  this  specie  re- 
sumption law.  Contraction  has  been  the  effect  of  it  so  far, 
"and  we  have  every  reason  to  believe  it  will  be  more  and 
more  so  up  to  the  time  of  resumption.  The  requirement  to 
redeem  in  specie  causes  this.  That  was  the  effect  in  Eng- 
land, as  shown  in  the  foregoing  extract  from  Doubleday's 
History. 

The  contraction  under  our  specie  resumption  law  up  to 
[November  1,  1876,  was  $30,710,732  of  national  bank-notes, 
and  $14,464,284  of  greenbacks,  besides  $20,910,946  more  of 
greenbacks  deposited  in  the  treasury  of  the  United  States 
for  the  retirement  of  national  bank-notes,  making  a  total 
contraction  of  the  currency  of  $66,085,962  up  to  the  date 
mentioned,  and  the  contraction  and  destroying  of  the  green- 
back money  are  still  going  on. 

•  But  when  this  contraction  has  gone  on  for  a  certain  time, 

instead  of  a  diffused  and  large  credit  pervading  the  country, 

we  have  all  the  loanable  capital  concentrated  in  the  great 

money  centres,  and  controlled  by  the  banks,  then  expan- 

9 


130  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

sion  of  credits  will  be  the  order  of  the  day.  Bank 
credit  will  be  thrown  out  in  unlimited  quantity,  in  the  shape 
of  bank-notes,  ostensibly  redeemable'  in  specie,  but  really 
not ;  but  all  secured  as  loans  on  the  property  of  the  bor- 
rower. Then*  the  banks  and  the  money  lenders  have  only 
to  contract  these  loans,  and  the  securities  being  suddenly 
thrown  upon  the  market,  sweeps  the  property  of  the  many 
into  the  hands  of  the  few.  This  is  the  game  of  all  banking. 

We  purpose  not  to  be  an  alarmist,  and  believe  we  are  not. 
We  think  we  have  no  motive  or  desire  whatever  to  create 
misapprehension,  groundless  fear  or  unjust  distrust  of  the 
integrity  or  capacity  of  those  in  authority.  But,  if  this 
greenback  money,  constituting  as  it  now  does  more  than 
half  of  the  currency  of  the  country,  be  withdrawn  from  cir- 
culation by  the  first  of  January,  1879,  the  time  fixed  for 
resumption",  there  will  be  no  enlargement  of  the  bank-note 
circulation  to  take  its  place,  or  at  least  a  very  inadequate 
one,  and  probably  a  contraction  instead,  and  at  that  time 
there  will  be  precipitated  upon  the  people  of  this  country  a 
financial  disaster  and  loss  of  estates,  like  unto  and  probably 
equal  to  that,  which  was  brought  upon  the  English  people  in 
1823,  when  more  than  four-fifths  of  the  land-owners  of  that 
country  were  robbed  of  their  possessions.  All  our  principal 
finance  laws,  passed  in  the  last  eleven  years,  seem  to  us 
framed  with  a  direct  reference  to  a  grand  future  crisis  of 
that  kind,  to  be  brought  about  by  contraction  of  the  cur- 
rency. We  do  not  believe  there  has  been  a  single  annual 
report  of  our  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  all  that  eleven 
years,  that  did  not  contain  one  or  more  recommendations, 
equally  monstrous  with  that  one  just  quoted  from  the  last 
report,  seeming  to  us  to  ignore  the  plainest  dictates  of  com- 
mon reason,  common  justice,  and  practical  experience,  and 
aiming  for  a  future  crisis  such  as  above  mentioned. 

I  now  ask  the  reader  to  again  peruse  carefully  the  prog- 
ress of  the  English  crisis  from  its  beginning,  in  1815,  to  its 
culmination,  in  1823,  the  time  of  resumption,  as  given  in 
the  above  extract  from  "  Doubleday's  History,"  and  compare 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.         131 

therewith,  as  far  as  we  have  progressed,  our  own  experience, 
embracing  the  last  eleven  years  of  our  history,  again  inspect- 
ing withal  the  table  of  bankruptcies.  It  will  be  found,  that 
we  are  travelling  the  same  road  exactly,  and  unless  our  peo- 
ple demand  a  halt,  or  restrain  the  Government  by  popular 
demands,  we  are  destined  to  the  same  end.  The  only  dif- 
ference is,  that  the"  game  here  has  to  proceed  slower  and 
more  cautiously,  more  shifts  and  devices  are  needed,  and 
more  newspaper  aid  has  to  be  employed  here  to  befog  the 
people,  than  was  required  ua  England  ;  because  history  throws 
more  light  on  the  subject  now  than  it  did  then,  and  because 
the  people  here  have  more  to  do  in  the  cause  of  Government 
than  they  had  in  England  ;  and  moreover,  by  reason  of  our 
greater  natural  resources,  our  country  is  able,  without  total 
and  immediate  ruin,  to  endure  a  greater  amount  of  robbery. 
I  do  not  believe  there  was  ever  such  a  horrid  system  of 
usury  practised  among  men,  as  preys  upon  this  country  at 
this  very  time. 

The  crisis  proceeds  here  as  it  did  in  England,  with  in- 
creasing bankruptcy  of  business  firms,  throwing  laborers 
more  and  more  out  of  employment.  According  to  reliable 
statistics,  failures  in  bankruptcy  in  this  country  have  had  a 
general  increase  for  the  last  eleven  years,  being  nineteen 
times  as  much  in  1876  as  in  1865.  And  every  increase  of 
bankruptcy  has  been  marked  by  an  increase  of  pauperism, 
suffering,  death  from  destitution,  disaffection,  political  and 
governmental  corruption,  and  a  failing  of  the  confidence  of 
our  own  people  in  our  own  republican  institutions. 

Specie  basis  or  specie  payments  should  be  something  of 
great  value  to  cost  so  much  suffering.  What  is  it,  therefore, 
and  what  is  it  for  ?  This  specie  basis,  or  specie  payment,  is 
a  something  written  down  in  the  books  of  British  science, 
and  from  thence  copied  into  ours.  Specie  is  a  something, 
that  a  very  few  wealthy  men,  of  almost  any  country,  can 
buy  up  and  hold  at  will,  substantially  the  entire  stock  in 
that  country,  as  is  done  now  in  the  United  States.  This 
being  done,  then  if  there  be  no  law  for  any  legal  tender 


132         COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

paper  money  in  the  country,  but  all  the  money,  in  order  to 
be  good,  must  be  either  specie  or  redeemable  in  specie,  these 
few  men  will  hold  entire  control  of  the  money  of  the  coun- 
try, and  can  control  all  business  and  prices,  and  virtually 
own  nearly  everything  in  the  country  sooner  or  later,  as  al- 
ways is  done,  where  this  specie  basis  fraud  exists. 

Again,  this  same  specie  is  good  to  make  watch  cases, 
watch  chains,  and  gold  and  silver  dishes  off,  and  to  work  into 
an  innumerable  variety  of  ornaments  for  persons,  male  and 
female,  and  otherwise  to  gratify  the  whims,  vanity  and 
pomp  of  the  wealthy  classes.  And,  to  what  extent  it  may 
be  required  for  this  purpose  in  any  one  country  depends 
upon  the  changes  of  fashion  and  the  ability  of  men  to  in- 
dulge in  it,  either  of  which  is  unstable  as  the  waves  of  the 
sea.  Likewise  in  times  of  war,  danger,  or  financial  uncer- 
tainty, this  specie  is  good  to  hoard  up,  and  is  hoarded  by 
men,  who  are  able,  from  motives  of  both  security  and  specu- 
lation. 

And  besides  these  things  occurring  within  the  country, 
the  like  casualties  all  over  the  world,  together  with  the  un- 
certainty of  the  yield  of  the  mines,  and  the  ever- varying 
laws  of  the  different  countries  in  monetizing  and  demone- 
tizing gold  and  silver  and  other  materials,  make  the  presence 
and  availability  of  specie,  either  for  money  or  the  basis  of 
currency,  one  of  the  most  unreliable  things  in  this  unreliable 
world. 

Yet  British  science  calls  this  most  fickle  commodity  the 
most  reliable  for  a  money  basis.  This  policy  will  do  for  the 
British  nobility  as  a  most  excellent  fiction,  by  which  to  turn 
systematically  to  themselves  the  earning  of  the  British  la- 
borers, as  is  constantly  done  in  that  country..  It  may  also 
do  for  American  politicians  or  office-seekers  (who,  as  we  are 
aware,  are  excusable,  if  they  have  no  ideas  of  their  own)  to 
prate  about,  so  as  to  please  the  money-dealers  and  get  their 
money  support  But  an  American  farmer,  who  is  entitled 
to  vote,  and  has  a  farm  that  he  desires  to  keep  and  not  have 
niched  from  him,  and  every  other  person  identified  with 


COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY.  133 

the  labor  interests  of  the  country,  should  consult  his  own 
•common  reason  and  his  practical  observation  of  things,  and 
not  lay  aside  either  of  these  to  be  misled  and  ensnared  by 
British  fiction  and  clap-trap. 

To  know  anything  about  this  subject  of  money,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  pause  right  here  and  consider  definitely  what  specie 
basis  or  specie  payments  mean.  Most  people  think  they  do 
understand  it,  and  yet  do  not  exactly.  Yery  many  think 
that  because  we,  the  greenback  men,  oppose  specie  basis, 
we  oppose  specie  money.  This  is  f urtherest  possible  from 
the  truth.  We  do  not  object  to  specie  money.  The  green- 
back principles,  if  thoroughly  carried  out,  will  make  specie 
abundant  in  the  country.  Nor  do  we  very  seriously  object 
to  having  our  paper  money  promise  to  be  redeemed  in 
specie.  The  dependence  on-  resumption  in  specie  as 
an  exclusive  basis,  so  called — this  is  what  we  do  ob- 
ject to  most  strenuously,  and  having  the  value  of  currency 
depend  in  the  least  degree  upon  its  being  so  redeemed  in 
specie.  That  is,  the  paper  currency,  whether  so  redeemed 
or  not,  should  be  a  full  legal  tender  for  all  debts  throughout 
the  country,  the  same  as  specie,  so  as  to  keep  it  par  with 
specie  in  value.  Owing  to  the  fickle  nature  of  specie  there 
is,  in  fact,  no  such  thing  as  specie  basis  for  the  currency  of 
any  commercial  nation.  Specie  basis  means  no  basis  at  all, 
but  the  absolute  power  of  a  few  men  to  decide  in  their  own 
interest,  how  much  currency  the  people  shall  have  for 
business,  or  whether  any  at  all  or  not,  with  power  to  change 
the  amount  to  suit  their  own  speculative  purposes. 

To  illustrate  still  more  completely  the  real  nature  of  this 
specie  basis  idea,  take,  for  example,  our  own  country,  the 
United  States.  Now,  any  one  year  of  prosperous  business 
throughout  this  country  would  be  attended  always  by  two 
things :  one  is  the  activity  of  its  money,  passing  from  hand 
to  hand,  the  other  is  growth.  In  other  words,  if  we  have  a 
single  year  of  active,  healthy  business,  we  are  ready  the  next 
year  to  do  a  still  greater  business.  Business  grows  with  its 
growth.  Growth  of  business  requires  a  corresponding 


134         COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

i 

growth  in  the  quantity  of  money,  just  exactly  as  a  tree,  that 
grows  vigorously  one  year  by  the  nourishment  of  the  earth 
and  air,  received  through  the  sap,  requires  a  greater  quan- 
tity of  that  sap  the  next  year  to  continue  the  growth  and 
health  of  the  tree.  Hence  we  see  in  the  Creator's  order  of 
things,  as  a  tree  grows  larger,  its  roots  fibres,  and  foliage 
reach  forth  deeper  and  higher,  and  broader  that  they  may 
gather  and  transmit  the  necessary  increase  of  sap  and  nourish- 
ment to  the  whole  tree.  Circumscribe  those  roots  and  fibres, 
or  otherwise  withhold  the  necessary  increase  of  sap,  required 
by  nature,  and  you  dwarf  the  tree  or  kill  it. 

Precisely  so  it  is  with  nations.  Prosperity,  if  we  have 
any,  is  attended  with  growth,  and  a  necessity  for  an  increase 
of  money.  "Withhold  the  increase  of  money  and  you  will 
dwarf  the  nation,  or  kill  it,  and  murder  the  inhabitants. 
Under  a  specie  basis  order  of  things  what  has  the  supply 
or  specie  to  do  with  the  wants  of  the  nation  for  more  or  less 
money.  Is  it  anywhere  revealed  to  us,  that  mines  and  job- 
bers will  always  give  forth  a  supply  just  suited  to  the  busi- 
ness necessities  ?  Nay,  verily.  But  in  proportion  as  you 
attempt  to  actually  base  the  currency  on  specie  will  the  job- 
bers grasp  the  specie  and  keep  it  out  of  legitimate  business. 
Thus-  you  limit  the  money  of  the  country  by  an  abritary, 
irresponsible  power,  that  feels  no  sympathy  with  the  money 
wants  of  the  nation.  The  theory,  therefore,  of  basing  the 
money  of  a  country  upon  specie,  the  most  liable  of  all  ma- 
terials to  be  snatched  away  for  luxury,  vanity  and  specula- 
tion, and  all  the  more  sure  to  be  so  snatched  away  as  the 
more  we  attempt  actually  to  base  money  upon  it,  is  a 
diabolical  idea,  a  wholesale,  murderous  conception,  and 
contrary  to  the  Creator's  order  of  things.  To  say  that  such 
materials,  gold  or  silver,  or  both  together,  constitute  the 
best  basis  for  currency,  is  as  contrary  to  the  truth  as  to  say 
that  a  brothel  is  the  best  place  to  preserve  chastity,  or  that 
the  taking  of  strong  drink  is  the  best  way  to  keep  temperate, 
or  that  a  deep-sounding  bed  of  quicksand  is  the  best  foun- 
dation for  a  house. 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.          135 

England  herself  does  not  in  reality  base  her  currency  on 
specie,  nor  could  she  without  bringing  all  business  to  a  dead 
stop  in  a  very  short  time.  She  just  mixes  enough  of  this 
specie  basis  fiction  in  her  finances  to  continually  or  perio- 
dically divest  the  laboring  classes  of  their  earnings  for  the 
benefit  of  the  nobility.  But  for  the  real  basis  of  value  to 
her  currency,  she  makes  the  notes  of  the  Bank  of  England, 
as  well  as  her  coins,  a  full  legal,  tender  for  the  payment  of 
debts,  but  not  the  notes  of  the  other  banks.  From  this  we 
see,  that  even  in  England  specie  basis  is  a  mere  fiction,  a 
false  pretence. 

"We  have  already  seen  what  a  terrible  siege  of  robbery, 
destitution,  suffering  and  death  the  Government  of  England 
made  its  people  pass  through  from  1815  to  1823  to  reach 
specie  basis,  or  specie  payments,  the  pretended  haven  of 
rest  and  happiness.  And  what  was  the  result  ?  The  fol- 
lowing statement  being  condensed  from  an  article  in  the  St. 
Louis  Commercial  of  March  23,  1876,  shows  what  that 
specie  payment  bliss  amounted  to  when  obtained : 

"  At.  the  time  of  ^Napoleon's  defeat  at  "Waterloo,  in  1815, 
the  Bank  of  England  and  the  country  banks  had  an  issue  of 
$270,000,000.  The  cry  of  resumption  being  raised,  the 
banks  set  about  a  sharp  contraction  of  both  their  issues  and 
their  discounts.  Between  1815  and  1823,  they  reduced  the 
volume  of  their  issue  33  per  cent. 

"  The  crissis  was  at  its  height  from  the  12th  to  the  17th 
of  December,  1825.  Up  to  the  night  of  the  14th  the  Bank 
of  England  had  restricted  its  issues  ;  but  at  that  time,  be- 
coming sensible  of  its  error,  it  resolved  to  make  common 
cause  with  the  country,  and  issued  circulating  notes  to  the 
amount  of  $25,000,000.  This  policy  was  crowned  with  the 
most  complete  success.  The  panic  was  stayed  almost  in- 
stantly. Credit  was  revived,  and  a  needless  and  protracted 
period  of  suffering  was  averted.  This  remedy  consisted 
in  a  profuse  issue  of  irredeemable  paper  money  to  the 
amount  of  $25,000,000." 

Similar  but  less  disastrous  panics  happened  in  1836  and 


136         COIN  AND  PAPEE  CURRENCY. 

1839,  and  from  then  to  1843  general  commercial  stagnation 
prevailed  throughout  England. 

In  1844,  Peel's  restriction  act  was  passed  by  Parliament, 
forbidding  the  bank  to  issue  beyond  14,000,000  pounds  ster- 
ling on  the  Government  stocks,  except  she  has  the  gold  in 
her  vaults,  pound  for  pound. 

Three  years  after  this  act  was  passed,  in  1847,  the  next 
panic  ensued.  The  extreme  pressure  began  September  23d 
and  continued  until  October  23d,  when  the  terrible  game 
was  played  out.  The  Queen's  Government  ordering  the  act 
suspended  and  the  currency  expanded,  two  millions  of  dol- 
lars, with  the  assurance,  that  plenty  more  could  be  had, 
cured  this  panic  instanter. 

In  1857  the  most  unexpected  and  disastrous  crisis  they 
had  ever  experienced,  swept  across  to  them  from  our  shores. 
To  stop  this  panic  the  bank  act  was  suspend  sd  again,  and 
the  currency — paper  money — was  expanded  nearly  $34,000,- 
000,  in  excess  of  the  limit,  which  then  stood  at  nearly  15,- 
000,000  pounds, 

In  1866  they  had  it  again.  The  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer said  the  excitement  was  without  parallel.  On  the 
evening  of  this  black  Friday,  the  ministry  advised  the  sus- 
pension of  the  bank  act,  which  was  done  the  next  morning, 
and  in  the  course  of  five  days  $60,000,000  of  paper  money 
issued  to  the  entire  relief  of  business  and  restoration  of 
confidence." 

From  the  above  it  will  be  seen  what  a  beautiful  thing  this 
forced  specie  payment  was,  when  reached  through  the  horri- 
ble robbery  of  the  English  people  in  1823.  After  it  was 
reached  it  was  maintained  with  increasing  suffering  and  mis- 
ery for  two  years  and  seven  months,  and  then  December  17, 
1825,  a  suspension  had  to  take  place,  and  $25,000,000  of  ir- 
redeemable paper  money  had  to  be  issued  to  stay  the  wretch- 
edness. And  again  another  author,  Hon.  Isaac  Buchanan, 
says :  "  England  seems  to  the  world  to  have  survived  the 
process  of  a  return  to  specie  payment,  although  how  she 
has  done  so,  if  gone  into  in  detail,  would  be  the  saddest  and 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  137 

most  harrowing  record  of  human  suffering.  ...  At 
the  end  of  thirty  years  (in  1839)  the  revenue,  or  in  other 
words  the  property  of  the  country,  got  fairly  broken  down, 
under  the  insidious  operations  of  the  English  money  sys- 
tem." Further  the  honorable  gentleman  says  that,  in  the 
1847  panic,  thousands  died  of  starvation  in  the  cellars  of 
the  manufacturing  and  seaport  towns  of  Great  Britain. 

Such  are  the  effects  of  specie  basis,  or  specie  payments, 
so  called,  a  thing  that  the  English  Government  pretended  to 
think  of  such  great  value  and  so  desirable  that,  in  order 
to  reach  it,  slie  dragged  her  people-  from  a  condition  of 
"  prosperity  universal  and  then  unheard  of,"  through  eight 
years  of  unheard-of  bankruptcy,  starvation  and  misery,  and 
then,  when  reached,  the  result  was  a  continuation  of  the 
same  horrors,  until  relieved  again  in  two  years  and  seven 
months  by  a  temporary  return  to  suspension  of  specie  pay- 
ments and  the  issue  of  irredeemable  paper  money.  And 
then  again,  after  twenty  years  more  of  miserable  existence 
on  the  part  of  the  labor  of  the  country,  we  find  the  labor- 
ers dying  by  thousands  of  starvation,  in  the  cellars  of  the 
manufacturing  and  seaport  towns.  And  still  these  scenes 
have  been  followed  by  successive  horrors  of  a  similar  kind 
at  intervals  ever  since,  relieved  in  every  instance  by  a  re- 
turn to  suspension  and  an  issue  of  irredeemable  paper  money. 

And  still  further,  as  late  as  1875,  we  find  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  of  the  British  kingdom  unanimously  adopted 
a  resolution  praying  the  Chancellor  of  Exchequer  to  ap- 
point a  commission  to  inquire,  amongst  other  things,  "  into 
the  constitution  and  actual  management  of  the  Bank  of 
France,  as  compared  with  the  constitution  and  actual  man- 
agement of  the  Bank  of  England ;  as  to  the  points  of  dif- 
ference in  the  constitution  and  actual  management  of  those 
banks  respectively,  to  which  may  be  attributed  the  crisis 
and  panics,  which  occur  periodically  in  the  English  money 
market,  and  do  not  occur  in  the  French  money  market  at  all" 

Now,  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind,  that  there  has  been  no 
specie  payments  in  France  since  1870,  or  at  least  no  law  yet 


13$         COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

in  force  requiring  it;  and  yet  the  paper  money  of  that 
country,  unlike  that  of  England,  is  all  a  full  legal  tender, 
and  all  the  time  substantially  par  with  gold.  This  is  the 
one  essential  point  of  difference  between  the  two  systems  of 
money  of  those  two  countries,  the  French  paper  currency, 
or  money,  is  a  full*  legal  tender  for  the  payment  of  all  debts, 
public  and  private,  within  the  realm,  and  can,  therefore, 
issue  continually,  and  does  issue,  in  sufficient  quantities  for 
the  business  of  the  country,  without  any  depreciation  of 
value.  Whilst  in  England,  the  bills  of  none  of  the  banks, 
except  the  Bank  of  England,  are  a  general  legal  tender  for 
debt,  but  depend  for  their  value  on  being  redeemed  in 
specie,  or  in  the  Bank  of  England  bills ;  whilst  the  bills  of 
the  Bank  of  England,  although  a  legal  tender,  are  limited 
usually  to  such  amount  as  can  be  redeemed  in  specie.  That 
is,  in  short,  the  English  paper  money  is,  to  some  extent  at 
least,  specie  basis  money,  whilst  that  of  France  is  irredeem- 
able, rag-baby  stuff,  essentially  such  as  England  had  in  time 
of  her  great  prosperity,  and  yet  such  as  the  prevailing  au- 
thorities of  this  country  and  England  call  a  pernicious  evil, 
but  which  the  commercial  or  mercantile  interests  of  Eng- 
land are  longing  to  have  established  in  opposition  to  the 
specie  basis  fiction  of  the  money  craft  of  that  country. 

NOTE. — The  foreign  balance  of  trade,  in  our  favor  at  pres- 
ent, is,  in  this  instance,  not  the  result  of  prosperity  of  home, 
but  of  lack  of  employment  and  poverty  among  our  people. 
Our  bankruptcies  and  bankrupt  sales,  being  of  greater  num- 
ber than  any  former  year,  and  laborers  more  unemployed 
than  ever,  would  seem  to '  indicate,  that  we  have  not  been 
producing  more,  but  have  been  selling  abroad  cheap,  and 
buying  less  from  abroad,  because  of  increased  poverty 
among  laborers.  That  is,  we  sold  cheap  abroad,  because  our 
own  people  were  too  much  unemployed  and  poor  to  buy  and 
use  what  were  to  them  the  necessaries  of  life  and  of  busi- 
ness. And  our  own  factories,  to  a  very  large  extent,  are  un- 
able to  be  run  at  all,  only  because,  having  changed  hands, 
the  present  owners  got  them  almost  for  nothing,  and  are 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.         139 

able  to  get  work-hands  on  the  same  scale  of  prices.  What  a 
triumph  is  this  of  governmental  political  economy  ?  The 
real  test  of  prosperity  is,  whether  or  not  labor  has  been  em- 
ployed and  well  paid.  And  labor  was  never  so  much  unem- 
ployed, and  never  so  poorly  paid  in  any  one  previous  year 
as  in  1876,  showing  a  constant  decline  in  our  industrial 
and  financial  condition,  despite  of  constant  prediction  to  the 
contrary  by  our  Government  functionaries  and  their  Shylock 
admirers. 

And,  furthermore,  the  withdrawal  of  the  greenback 
money  from  circulation,  as  recommended  by  our  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  and  President  Grant,  also,  will  itself  bring 
greatly  increased  prostration  of  labor  and  business,  and  turn 
the  flow  of  specie  away  from  us,  provided  we  shall  then  have 
any  to  flow  away. 

When  Mr.  Chase  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in  time 
of  the  war,  and  before  the  commencement  of  this  eleven 
years  of  decline,  he  desired  authority  from  Congress  to  re- 
ceive deposits  of  money  in  the  Treasury  from  our  people, 
payable  back  on  ten  days'  notice  in  our  own  lawful  paper 
money,  with  interest  at  five  per  cent;  This  would  have  been 
on  the  like  principle  of  interconvertible  bond,  now  urged  by 
the  greenback  advocates.  Had  the  plan  of  Mr.  Chase  been 
carried  out,  it  would  have  enabled  our  Government  to  obtain 
constant  credit  among  our  own  business  men  to  the  amount 
of  several  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  much  to  the  benefit 
of  the  men  themselves,  and  the  saving  of  gold  bonds  being 
issued  to  foreigners.  But  Congress  was  full  of  bankers,  as 
it  always  is,  and  they  wanted  these  private  deposits  to  bank 
on  themselves  ;  for  which  reason  the  Secretary  was  permit- 
ted to  receive  only  one  hundred  millions  in  this  way,  which 
was  eagerly  deposited. 

One  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  under  President  Grant's 
administration,  by  long-continued  effort,  funded  five  hundred 
millions  of  our  national  debt  in  gold  bonds  and  sold  them  in 
the  foreign  market,  when,  had  our  people  been  provided 
with  legal  tender  paper  money,  so  as  to  have  kept  our  labor 


140         COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

employed  at  home,  after  the  French  manner,  we  could  have 
paid  off  the  whole  five  hundred  millions  in  less  time  than 
the  Secretary  was  funding  it.  The  policy  seems  to  be  to 
foster  gold  debts  abroad  and  prostration  of  the  industries  at 
home ;  because  this  double  fostering  tends  to  increase  our 
debts,  public  and  private,  and  especially  as  we  are  going  to 
base  our  currency  all  on  specie,  we  must  have  these  foreign 
debts  to  take  the  specie  away  from  us  in  the  shape  of  interest, 
then  we  will  be  without  specie,  without  money  basis,  with- 
out money  of  course,  and  without  price  for  anything ;  then 
will  we  be  in  good  condition  for  our  merciful  British  nobility 
benefactors,  and  their  generous  coadjutors  on  these  shores, 
to  take  us,  with  this  little  heritage  of  ours,  into  their  kind 
care  and  keeping,  both  for  ownership  and  government,  civil 
.and  military.  Then  we  shall  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  hew 
their  wood,  draw  their  water,  cultivate  their  soil,  and  fight 
such  battles  as  they  see  fit,  for  their  own  glory  and  amuse- 
ment, to, set  in  array  for  us. 

The  demonetizing  of  silver,  as  was  done  by  act  of  Con- 
gress of  February  12,  1873,  is  a  part  of  this  same  scheme, 
taken  in  connection  with  issuing  of  foreign  gold  bonds,  to 
get  the  country  destitute  of  specie,  and  in  that  condition 
force  specie  payments,  and  thereby  create  a  sweeping  trans- 
fer of  the  people's  property  to  a  moneyed  few,  in  the  same 
manner  as  was  done  in  England,  and  to  establish  the  same 
condition  of  things  here  as  there,  to  wit :  a  noble  few  to  own 
the  country  and  rule  it,  and  a  vassalage  to  perform  the  work. 
If  this  is  the  destiny  intended  for  us  by  the  founders  of 
our  Government,  I  have  labored  under  a  great  mistake  all 
my  life. 

NOTE. — In  place  of  over-producing,  we  have  imported,  in 
the  last  ten  years,  over  one  thousand  million  dollars,  ($1,000,- 
000,000)  in  excess  of  what  we  are  able  to  pay  by  sales 
of  exports,  proving  positively,  that  over-importation  is  one 
cause  of  our  financial  troubles,  and  under-production  to  be 
the  real  cause,  instead  of  over-industry.  These  "balances" 
must  have  been  paid  by  sending  our  bonds  abroad,  thus 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CTJEEENCY.  141 

alienating  our  national  debt,  and  having  to  pay  the  interest 
abroad. 

To  reduce  our  imports  two  hundred  millions  annually  is 
giving  our  laboring  and  producing  classes  annually  two  hun- 
dred million  dollars  of  additional  employments.  This  can 
easily  be  done  by  means  of  proper  tariff  law,  without  cost, 
and  without  borrowing. 

A  large  increase  of  duties  on  foreign  industries  of  our  own 
kind,  is  no  increase  of  taxes  upon  our  own  people,  but  the 
reverse,  being  an  increase  of  wealth  to  them,  as  our  Gov- 
ernment requires  only  a  certain  amount  of  revenue  for  its 
support,  which  is  as  large  under  low  as  under  protective  du- 
ties. The  difference  and  gain  to  our  people  is  the  increase 
of  employment  and  gold,  corresponding  with  the  reduction 
made  in  the  amount  and  gold  cost  of  our  imports.  % 

The  unparalleled  prosperity  of  France,  fresh  from  her 
disastrous  war,  can  only  be  attributed  to  her  wise  protective 
policy,  which  results-  in  having  annually  a  balance  of  trade 
of  over  one  hundred  millions  in  her  favor. 

I  favor  a  free  list  and  low  duties  for  all  necessary  pro- 
ductions imported,  which  we  ourselves  do  not  produce  and 
sell. 

A  tariff  for  revenue,  and  not  for  the  protection  of  Amer- 
ican industries,  would  quickly  cause  our  great  Republic  to  be 
reduced  to  the  level  of  European  countries — for  working- 
men,  a  country  to  migrate  from  to  seek  elsewhere  work  and 
a  living. 

There  are  two  ways  to  renew  specie  payments.  One  is  by 
contracting  and  destroying  our  present  and  only  money  and 
continue  low  duties,  and  leave  all  in  poverty,  so  that  event- 
ually we  cannot  import  for  the  want  of  funds,  which  would 
necessarily  largely  reduce  imports  and  give  us  the  balance  of 
trade.  The  other  way  is  a  large  increase  of  duties,  which 
would  cause  a  like  large  reduction  of  imports,  and  cause  a 
large  demand  for  American  employments  and  productions  at 
home,  to  supply  the  reduction  made  in  imports. 

Our  Congress  should  make  our  paper  currency  as  good  as 


142  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

gold,  a  legal  tender  for  import  duties,  and  at  the  same  time 
largely  increase  the  duties,  to  cover  the  loss  in  the  difference 
of  value  in  gold  and  currency,  and  to  largely  reduce  imports 
below  trade  exports. 

"Whenever  our  nation's  annual  exports  (exclusive  of  gold 
debt  payments  sent  abroad)  will  not  fully  meet  and  pay  all 
f oregin  demands,  both  for  purchased  imports,  debt  •  and  in- 
terest annually  due  abroad,  then  we  should  increase  duties 
to  retrench  and  economize  our  nation's  foreign  extravagance 
in  purchasing  imports.  Then  our  country  could  not  be  im- 
poverished as  now,  either  of  its  own  employments  or  its  own 
gold. 

When  either  of  the  real  producers  of  our  country's  wealth, 
manufacturers,  miners,  or  farmers,  are  impoverished  by 
foreign  competition,  then  all  are  made  to  suffer ;  because  each 
one's  productions  add  to  the  one  total  production  of  our 
country. 

There  is  only  one  quick  way  to  possess  an  abundance  of 
specie,  and  that  is  this  way,  which  is  a  very  old  one — Do 
not  spend  so  much  specie  with  other  nations  for  foreign  pro- 
ductions. Manufacture  and  produce  more  for  ourselves. 
This  will  give  our  people  more  specie  and  more  employ- 
ment and  wealth.  A  high  tariff  alone  will  do  this. 

The  protectionists  of  foreign  industries  in  Congress  are 
easily  known.  They  are  always  in  favor  of  taxing  heavily 
American  productions  three  hundred  per  cent.,  and  would 
tax  tea  and  coffee,  which  our  poor  people  must  have  and 
should  not  be  taxed  ;  because  it  will  not  increase  our  employ- 
ments, as  duties  on  foreign  industries  would  do. 

Our  American  people  cannot  support  all  other  nations'  in- 
dustries and  our  own  besides,  as  low  duties  now  cause  us  to 
do.  A  tariff  law  for  American  industries  alone  would  dis- 
solve this  ruinous  and  unnatural  division  of  our  market,  as 
was  found  necessary  to  do  after  the  bankruptcies  of  1837 
and  1857,  to  our  country's  immediate  relief  from  depres- 
sion of  business. 


COIN   AND   PAPEE   CURRENCY.  143 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  NEW  YORK  PRESS  CLUB, 
DECEMBER  12,  1878. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen:  It  is  now  more  than 
twenty  years  since  I  cut  from  a  newspaper  a  statement,  that 
made  a  deep  impression  on  my  mind. 

The  writer  in  a  few  words  proclaimed  a  fact  of  unmeas- 
ured importance  to  our  country  and  the  world.  He  said 
that  "  knowledge,  economy,  and  labor  are  the  shining  virtues 
of  civilized  man." 

A  man  without  knowledge  is  a  helpless  animal ;  and  with- 
out science  he  is  a  straying  wanderer. 

Science,  my  friends,  presents  to  the  world  a  revelation  of 
laws,  designed  in  infinite  wisdom  for  the  use  and  elevation 
of  mankind. 

They  are  laws  that  have,  as  the  poet  says,  "  connected  in 
this,  our  world,  our  greatest  virtue  with  our  greatest  bliss  ;" 
and  have  made  "  our  own  bright  prospect  to  be  blest,  our 
strongest  motive  to  assist  the  rest." 

Science,  my  friends,  is  the  knowledge  of  laws  actually 
demonstrated  by  the  experience  of  mankind. 

The  knowledge  and  application  of  science,  when  rightly 
and  wisely  understood  and  applied  to  all  the  useful  and 
necessary  purposes  of  life,  will  enable  man  to  unlock  the 
deep  mysteries  of  creation,  and  draw  from  its  silent  depths, 
"  all  that  is  good  for  food,  and  pleasant  to  the  eye,  and  cal- 
culated to  make  us  wise. 

When  we  as  a  people  become  wise  enough  to  make  all 
laws  in  accord  with  scientific  principles,  they  will  then  be- 
come so  clear,  plain  and  positive,  that  no  man  can  long  hold 
office  and  receive  its  emoluments,  without  a  faithful  per- 
formance of  those  duties  required  by  the  law. 

The  true  object  of  all  good  Government  must  be  forever 


144  COIN  -AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

the  promotion  of  human  welfare.  This  will  never  be  more 
grandly  set  forth  and  described  than  it  now  is  in  the  pre- 
amble to  the  Constitution  of  these  United  States. 

There  we  find,  that  the  true  object  intended  by  the  framers 
of  the  Constitution  was  clearly  and  fully  expressed.  They 
declared  that  "  We,  the  people  of  these  United  States,  in  or- 
der to  form  a  mQtt  perfect  union,  establish  justice,  insure 
domestic  tranquillity,  provide  for  the  common  defense,  pro- 
mote the  general  welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty 
to  ourselves  and  our  posterity,  do  ordain  this  Constitution 
for  the  people  of  these  United  States." 

They  then  and  there  declared  that  "  the  Congress  shall 
have  power  to  make  all  laws  which  shall  be  necessary  and 
proper  for  carrying  into  execution  the  foregoing  powers, 
and  all  other  powers  vested  by  this  Constitution  in  the  Gov- 
ernment of  these  United  States,  or  any  department  or 
officer  thereof." 

This  Constitution  holds  every  officer  bound  by  his  oath 
of  office  to  perform  his  every  act,  as  intending  to  establish 
justice  and  promote  the  general  welfare. 

Our  Independent  Party  holds  it  to  be  a  fact,  that  our  Gov- 
ernment is  now,  and  ever  has  been  bound  by  an  act  of  justice 
to  the  American  people  to  coin  money  and  regulate  the  value 
thereof,  and  also  "to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  na- 
tions and  among  the  several  States." 

It  was  made  the  duty  of  Congress  to  receive  in  payment 
for  all  taxes,  duties  and  debts,  all  the  various  forms  of  paper 
money,  that  have  been  issued  for  what  was  used  and  con- 
sumed in  the  prosecution  of  the  war.  The  American  people 
are  coming  to  know,  that  every  dollar,  paid  out  by  the  Gov- 
ernment in  legal  money  for  value  received,  has  thereby 
become  the  people's  money  as  effectually  as  it  would  be,  if 
every  dollar  had  been  paid  them  in  gold. 

For  a  Government  to  withdraw  from  the  trade  of  a  coun- 
try such  a  currency,  which  the  people  had  paid  for  and 
owned  as  honestly  as  they  owned  their  land  or  the  clothes 
on  their  backs.  It  had  become  by  its  use  the  country's  cur- 


COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  145 

rency,  that  was  giving  its  benefits  without  costing  the  people 
or  the  Government  anything  but  the  printing  and  the  paper 
on  which  it  was  made.  This  much  abused  paper  money 
had  actually  purchased  and  paid  for  all  the  labor  and  ma- 
terials, that  were  consumed  in  our  struggle  for  the  nation's  life. 
Such  a  currency  should  have  been  regarded  by  Congress,  at 
the  close  of  the  war,  as  a  treasure  of  more  value  than  all  the 
gold  mines,  that  have  ever  been  discovered  in  our  country. 

It  was  a  currency,  that  had  not  only  saved  the  nation's 
life,  but  it  had  demonstrated  a  principle  of  incalculable  value 
to  our  country  and  the  world. 

It  had  proved,  that  Solon  was  right  in  saying,  that  a  cur- 
rency should  be  that,  which  is  most  valuable  to  the  State, 
and  of  no  value  for  any  other  purpose,  exactly  like  our 
greenbacks. 

Our  currency  had  demonstrated  the  fact,  that  paper 
money  with  the  stamp  of  the  Government  upon  it,  promis- 
ing to  receive  it  in  payment  for  all  forms  of  taxes,  duties 
and  debts,  and  interconvertible  with  the  bond  of  the  Gov- 
ernment at  a  low,  but  equitable  rate  of  interest,  would  be  the 
most  convenient  currency,  that  the  world  had  ever  seen. 

Such  a  currency  should  have  been  limited  to  the  amount 
of  the  people's  money  actually  found  in  circulation  at  the 
close  of  the  war,  as  that  was  the  price  of  the  Nation's  life. 
That  amount  of  legal  money,  having  been  wrongfully  taken 
from  the  people  by  allowing  war  taxes  to  continue,  after  the 
war  had  come  to  an  end,  should  now  be  reissued  and  used 
in  the  purchase  and  the  extinguishment  of  all  the  bonds,  now 
due  and  held  by  the  Government  as  a  security  for  the  money 
issued  by  the  National  Banks. 

All  banking  would  then  be  done  with  a  National  money, 
representing  the  whole  property  of  the  American  people. 

The  amount  of  paper  money,  so  found  in  circulation  as  a 
currency  at  the  close  of  the  war,  should  never  be  increased 
or  diminished,  only  as  per  capita  with  the  increase  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  country. 

One  National  money  would  diminish  the  chance  of  loss 
10 


146  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

by  counterfeit  money  in  the  proportion  as  one  would  hear  to 
the  whole  number  of  National  Banks.  Instead,  the  Na- 
tional Banks  present  more  than  2,000  sets  of  pictures  to 
become  acquainted  with,  we  should  then  have  but  one  Na- 
tional money,  that  all  would  soon  learn  to  know  at  sight, 
and  that  such  a  currency  *would  become  an  ever-strengthen- 
ing bond  of  National  union. ' 

Such  a  currency,  made  as  secure  as  the  embodied  wealth 
and  power  of  a  nation  can  make  it,  would  give  a  stability 
and  security  to  the  operations  of  trade  and  commerce  ;  and 
would  more  effectually  secure  the  reward  of  labor  to  those, 
who  earn  it  than  any  other  form  of  currency  ever  before  in- 
troduced. 

The  Constitution  has  declared  that  "  the  Congress  shall 
have  power  to  lay  and  collect  taxes,  duties,  imposts,  and  ex- 
cises, to  provide  for  the  common  defense  and  the  general 
welfare  of  these  United  States." 

The  power  of  Congress  is  ample  to  restore  to  the  people 
their  money,  that  had  been  wrongfully  taken  from  them  by 
war  taxes ;  and  then,  this  same  money  has  been  converted 
into  a  national  debt.  More  than  one  thousand  four  hundred 
millions  of  dollars  has  been  wrung  from  the  toiling  masses 
to  pay  the  interest  on  a  currency,  that  had  belonged  to  the 
people — a  currency  President  Grant  declared  was  the  best 
currency,  that  the  country  had  ever  possessed  ;  and  that 
there  was  no  more  in  circulation  than  was  needed  for  the 
darkest  period  of  the  year.  The  present  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  has  said,  that  the  people's  currency  had  been  so 
long  used  "  that  every  citizen  of  the  United  States  had  con- 
formed his  business  to  the  legal  tender  clause,  of  the  law 
regulating  the  currency  of  the  country." 

This  same  Secretary  declared,  that  the  man,  who  would  re- 
fuse to  receive  the  same  kind  of  money,  that  he  had  paid 
out,  would  be  a  repudiator  and  extortioner.  He  also  de- 
clared when  a  Senator,  that  to  take  from  the  people  such 
a  currency  "  would  be  an  act  of  folly  without  an  example 
in  ancient  and  modern  times." 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.          147 

PETER  COOPER — His  REPLY  TO  CASHIER  WILLIAMS. 
(From  the  Albany  Evening  Post,   October  19,  1878.) 

The  reply  of  Peter  Cooper  to  the  errors,  contained  in 
Cashier  C.  P.  Williams'  communication,  was  published  in 
last  evening's  journal.  It  is  short  and  conclusive,  and,  in  a 
few  well  turned  paragraphs,  entirely  disposes  of  the  crudities 
of  the  Cashier.  Mr.  Williams  has  an  idea,  that  nothing  but 
redeeming  paper  money  in  gold  can  ever  make  it  as  valuable 
as  gold.  Mr.  Cooper  thus  disposes  of  this  illogical  con- 
clusion : 

"  If  England  and  France  were  to-morrow  to  demonetize 
gold  and  silver,  and  make  their  treasury  notes  the  exclusive 
legal  tender  of  their  respective  realms,  they  would  imme- 
diately be  at  a  premium  over  gold.  Venice  practically  de- 
monetized gold  and  silver  in  large  transactions,  her  paper 
was  accepted  as  legal  tender,  and  w^as  at  a  premium  over 
gold  for  several  centuries  ;  sometimes  as  much  as  thirty  per 
cent,  premium,  so  that  a  law  was  actually  passed,  prohibiting 
the  charge  of  a  higher  premium  than  twenty  per  cent." 

What  says  Cashier  Williams  to  this  ?  t  Mr.  Cooper  is  op- 
posed to  resumption  in  January.  We  give  his  reasons : 

"  If  we  resume  on  January  first  next,  it  will  be  only  on 
suffrance  by  the  foreigner,  who,  unquestionably,  has  the 
ability,  if  he  shall  choose  to  exercise  it,  to  drain  every  dol- 
lar of  gold  from  the  Treasury,  which  Mr.  Sherman  has 
collected  to  begin  resumption." 

Cashier  Williams  is  opposed  to  the  substitution  of  green- 
backs for  bank  notes.  Mr.  Cooper  is  not.  We  quote  Mr. 
Cooper : 

"  The  substitution  of  greenbacks  for  National  bank  notes, 
will  make  a  uniform  currency  of  money.  A  greenback  legal 
tender  is  to  the  full  as  much  real  money  as  a  gold  legal 
tender,  the  only  difference  being,  that  as  many  nations 
make  gold  a  legal  tender,  there  is  more  demand  for  it,  than 
for  paper  legal  tenders,  which  have  the  sovereign  stamp  of 
only  one  Government. 


148  COIIST  AND   PAPER  CUKRENCY. 

The  substitution  of  greenbacks  for  National  bank  notes, 
would  have  the  bounty  now  paid  to  banks,  which,  being  in- 
vested as  a  sinking  fund,  would  in  less  than  thirty  years  pay 
off  the  whole  debt  of  the  country." 


OPEN  LETTER  TO  HON.  JOHN  SHERMAN,  SECRETARY  OF  THE 

TREASURY. 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  Since  I  had  the  honor  of  your  call  at  my 
house,  and  since  the  letter  I  sent  you  and  the  receipt  of 
your  reply,  I  have  reflected  seriously  on  the  few  minutes' 
conversation  I  had  with  you  on  that  occasion,  and  on  the 
acts  of  Government  since  that  time. 

I  hope  you  will  recollect  how  earnestly  I  endeavored  to 
show  you,  that  the  Constitution  has  -made  it  the  first  and 
most  important  duty  of  Congress  to  take  and  hold  the  entire 
control  of  all,  that  should  ever  have  ~been  allowed  to  circulate 
as  the  money,  weights  and  measures  of  the  nation. 

In  all  that  I  have  written,  I  have  labored  to  make  plain 
the  fact,  that  the  establishment  of  justice,  with  the  making  of 
the  necessary  and  proper  laws,  were  the  most  important  duties 
enjoined  on  Congress  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

I  believe  I  have  shown,  that  nearly  all  the  financial  laws, 
that  have  been  passed  during  and  since  our  last  war,  have 
been  passed  under  the  advice  and  in  the  interest  of  a  class 
of  men,  who  have  been  allowed  to  control  the  moneyed  in- 
terests of  our  own  and  other  countries. 

The  worst  of  these  laws  were  passed  in  direct  opposition 
to  your  own  earnest  and  eloquent  declarations,  made  by  you 
in  1869  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  You  there  and 
then  warned  the  country  in  the  most  emphatic  language, 
showing  that  a  national  policy,  designed  to  contract  the  cir- 
culating medium,  would  cause  gold  to  appreciate  in  value, 
as  it  has  since  done,  so  that  gold  will  now  purchase  double 
the  amount  of  real  estate,  that  the  same  amount  of  gold 
would  have  purchased  four  years  ago. 


AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  149 

\ 

You  were  right,  when  you  declared,  "  that  every  citizen 
of  the  United  States  had  conformed  his  business  to  the  legal 
tender  clause  of  the  law  "  for  the  regulation  of  the  currency. 
You  were  also  right,  in  1869,  when  you  gave  to  Congress 
that  most  timely  warning  against  any  attempt  to  shrink  and 
contract  the  volume  of  a  legal  money,  which  the  Govern- 
ment had  been  compelled  to  issue,  as  the  only  means  for  the 
nation's  salvation. 

At  that  time  you  declared,  in  language  never  to  be  forgot- 
ten, that  an  act  of  Government,  intended  to  contract  the  cur- 
rency of  the  country,  would  paralyze  all  industries,  as  it  has 
done.  You  made  it  plain,  that  the  purchasing  power  of 
gold  would  increase  in  the  same  proportion.  The  con- 
traction has  actually  shrunk  the  value  of  real  estate  to  a  con- 
dition, where  it  cannot  be  sold,  or  mortgages  obtained  on  it 
for  more  than  half  the  amount,  that  the  same  property 
would  have  brought  four  years  ago. 

Those  cruel  financial  acts  of  the  Government  have  cost 
the  nation  thousands  of  millions  of  dollars,  and  have  brought 
wretchedness  and  ruin  to  the  homes  of  millions  of  the  Ame- 
rican people,  proving  what  you  said  in  the  Senate  in  1869 
to  be  true.  You  then  declared,  that  such  a  policy  "  would 
be  an  act  of  folly  without  example  in  ancient  or  modern 
times." 

I  here  quote  from  my  last  published  appeal  in  behalf  of 
those  suffering  millions,  whose  lawful  money  and  property 
have  been  wrongfully  taken  from  them  by  a  course  of  legis- 
lation in  direct  violation  of  the  first  and  most  important 
requirement  of  the  Constitution  of  our  country.  That 
Constitution,  as  I  have  said,  covers  in  a  few  words  the  whole 
of  the  nation's  wants. 

It  must  never  be  forgotten,  that  there  is  no  effect  in 
nature  without  a  cause  equal  to  its  production. 

In  view  of  this  fact,  I  have  found  myself  compelled,  by 
an  inextinguishable  desire,  to  do  all  in  my  power  to  call  and 
fix  the  attention  of  the  American  people  on  a  cause,  that 
has  actually  brought  upon  a  great  nation  all  those  dire  cala- 


150  COIN  AND   PAPER   CUEEENCY. 

mities,  so  admirably  foretold  by  you  in  your  speech,  made 
in  the  Senate,  in  1869. 

The  American  people  have  come  to  know,  that  our  coun- 
try has  been  subjected  to  a  cruel  national  financial  policy — a 
policy,  which  has  (as  I  have  said)  converted  jthe  people's 
money,  that  was  actually  found  circulating  as  a  national  cur- 
rency at  the  close  of  the  war,  without  cost  to  either  the  Gov- 
ernment or  the  people,  into  a  National  Debt. 

Your  speech  in  the  Senate  was  intended  to  show,  that  a 
nation's  currency  could  not  be  contracted  without  bringing 
ruin  on  the  debtors  and  on  the  laboring  classes  throughout 
our  country. 

We  may  well  ask  what  will  the  people  do,  when  they  come 
to  realize  the  fact,  that  their  money  has,  not  only  been  wrong- 
fully taken  from  them  as  a  circulating  medium,  but  has  been 
converted  into  a  national  debt,  and  that  debt  has  been  un- 
justly released  from  bearing  any  part  of  the  burdens  of  the 
State  or  National  taxation. 

To  show  the  ruin,  that  the  contraction  policy  would  bring 
on  the  country,  you  declared  in  the  Senate  "  that  every  citi- 
zen of  the  United  States  had  conformed  his  business  to  the 
legal  tender  clause  of  the  law,"  regulating  the  currency  of 
the  country. 

In  my  late  appeal  to  all  legislators  and  religious  teachers, 
I  have  demonstrated  a  fact,  which  cannot  be  disproved,  viz.: 
that  all  the  legal  money,  paid  out  by  the  Government  for 
labor  and  property  during  the  war,  was  beyond  all  contro- 
versy, the  people's  money.  To  establish  justice,  this  money 
must  be  given  back  to  them  in  the  purchase  of  all  the  out- 
standing interest-bearing  bonds  of  the  Government. 

By  this  plan  a  partial  justice  can  be  established,  and  the 
general  welfare  of  the  nation  can  ~be  surely  and  effectually 
promoted. 

This  plan  will  return  to  all  the  original  holders  of  Gov- 
ernment bonds,  nearly  double  the  amount  in  the  same  kind 
of  legal  money,  that  was  originally  paid  for  the  bonds  at  the 
time  they  were  first  issued. 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CURRENCY.         151 

The  holders  of  these  bonds  should  not  complain,  after 
having  been  so  kindly  treated  by  a  Government,  that  has 
altered  the  laws  four  times  on  their  urgent  solicitation,  and 
on  a  most  ridiculous  pretence,  namely,  that  such  alterations 
in  the  laws  were  necessary  to  strengthen  the  credit  of  a  na- 
tion, that  had  just  conquered  one  of  the  greatest  rebellions 
ever  known. 

All  that  is  now,  or  ever  has  been  needed  to  secure  a  con- 
tinued prosperity,  was  and  is  a  national  currency r,  made  per- 
manently receivable  for  all  forms  of  taxes,  duties  and  debts, 
public  and  private. 

It  must  be  just  such  a  money  as  Secretary  Chase  declared 
our  greenbacks  to  be.  He  said  a  "  greenback  is  simply  the 
credit  of  the  American  people,  put  in  the  form  of  money 
for  circulation  among  the  people,  whose  whole  property  is 
represented  in  its  use.  When  I  was  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury, the  question  arose  how  should  the  soldiers  in  field  and 
the  sailors  in  ships  be  fed.  ...  I  found,  that  the  banks 
of  the  country  had  suspended  specie  payment.  What  was 
I  to  do  ?  The  banks  wanted  me  to  borrow  their  credit,  or 
pay  interest  on  their  credit.  They  did  not  pay  gold  or  pro- 
pose to  pay  any  themselves,  but  wanted  me  to  buy  their 
notes.  -  I  said :  ( No,  gentlemen  !  I  will  take  the  credit  of 
the  people  and  cut  it  up  into  little  bits  of  paper.' "  This  is 
the  true  idea  of  the  greenback.  It  is  the  credit  and  the  prop- 
erty of  the  American  people,  made  to  serve  the  purposes  of 
money.  It  was  that  money  that  saved  the  nation's  life, 
when  gold  and  silver  had  entirely  failed  to  meet  the  wants 
of  the  Nation. 

Our  paper  money  did  all  this,  notwithstanding  a  part  of 
its  purchasing  power  had  been  repudiated  by  an  act  of  Gov- 
ernment. 

This  money  can  be  made  an  ever  strengthening  bond  of 
national  union,  by  making  the  people's  money,  as  found,  the 
permanent  unfluctuating  measure  of  all  values,  and  never  to 
be  increased  only  with  the  increase  of  the  inhabitants  of  our 
country. 


152  COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY. 

Such  a  currency  can  be  made  as  uniform  in  its  purchasing 
power  as  the  yard,  the  pound,  or  the  bushel  measure. 

The  Constitution  of  our  country  has  also  declared,  that 
Congress  shall  have  power  "  to  make  all  laws,  which  shall  ~be 
necessary  and  proper  for  carrying  into  execution  the  fore- 
going powers,  vested  by  this  Constitution  in  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States,  or  any  department  of  office 
thereof." 

The  Declaration  of  Independence  expressly  says,  that  it 
was  to  "  secure  these  rights  that  Governments  are  instituted 
among  men  "  and  that  "  whenever  any  form  of  Government 
becomes  destructive  of  these  ends  it  is  the  right  of  the  peo- 
ple to  alter  or  abolish  it,  and  to  institute  a  new  Government, 
laying  its  foundation  on  such  principles,  and  organizing  its 
power  in  such  form,  as  to  them  shall  seem  most  likely  effect- 
ually to  promote  their  safety  and  happiness/' 

And  further,  that  Declaration  states,  that 

"All  experience  has  shown,  that  mankind  are  more  dis- 
posed to  suffer,  while  evils  are  sufferable,  than  they  are  to 
right  themselves  by  abolishing  the  forms,  to  which  they  are 
accustomed.  But,  when  a  long  train  of  abuses  and  usurpa- 
tions, pursuing  invariably  the  same  object,  evinces  a  design 
to  reduce  them  under  absolute  despotism,  it  is  their  right, 
it  is  their  duty,  to  provide  new  guards  for  their  future  se- 
curity." 

Such  has  been  the  patient  sufferance  of  the  American 
people ;  they  have  long  borne  with  a  course  of  financial 
laws,  that  were  as  cruel  as  they  are  unjust.  By  these  laws 
there  has  been  taken  from  the  people  the  very  money,  which 
the  Government  had  authorized  and  paid  out  in  exchange 
for  all  the  forms  of  labor  and  property,  used  and  consumed 
by  the  Government  in  a  four  year's  struggle  for  the  national 
life. 

This  money  was  actually  paid  out  to  the  people,  as  I  have 
said,  for  "value  received  by  the  Government.  It  was 
clothed  with  all  the  legal  attributes  of  money,  and  sanctioned 
as  such  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  It  had 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CUEEENCY.         153 

become  the  people's  money  for  all  intents  and  purposes,  as 
effectually  as  though  it  had  all  been  paid  to  them  in  gold. 
The  Government  had  lost  all  control  over  this  money,  so 
paid  to  the  people,  except  to  tax  it  as  all  other  property,  to 
meet  the  current  expenses  of  the  Government.  This  money 
had  been  used  for  years  by  the  Government  and  the  people, 
as  a  national  currency,  costing  the  Government  nothing  but 
the  paper  on  which  it  was  made ;  it  had  been  allowed  to  cir- 
culate as  legal  money  until,  as  you  declared  when  a  Senator, 
"that  every  citizen  of  the  United  States  had  conformed 
his  business  to  the  legal-tender  law  "  regulating  the  currency 
of  the  country. 

The  people  are  compelled  to  remember  the  noble  senti- 
ments you  expressed  in  1869,  when  you  gave  to  Congress 
and  the  country  that  most  fearful  warning  against  any  at- 
tempt to  shrink  the  volume  of  legal  money,  which  the  Gov- 
ernment had  been  compelled  to  issue  for  the  nation's  salva- 
tion. You  declared  on  that  occasion,  in  language  never  to 
be  forgotten :  .  .  .  . 

"  That  the  appreciation  of  the  currency  is  a  far  more  dis- 
tressing operation  than  Senators  supposed." 

You  then  stated  that, 

"It  is  not  possible  to  take  this  voyage  without  the  sorest 
distress  to  every  person,  excepf  a  capitalist  out  of  debt,  or  a 
salaried  officer  or  annuitant.  It  is  a  period  of  loss,  danger, 
lassitude  of  trade,  fall  of  wages,  suspension  of  enterprise, 
bankruptcy  and  disaster.  To  every  railroad  it  is  an  addition 
of  one-third  to  ttye  burden  of  its  debts,  and  more  than  that 
deduction  to  the  value  of  its  stock.  ...  It  means  the 
ruin  of  all  dealers,  whose  debts  become  twice  their  (business) 
capital,  though  one-third  less  than  their  actual  property.  It 
means  the  fall  of  all  agricultural  productions,  without  any 
great  reduction  of  taxes.  What  prudent  man  would  dare  to 
build  a  house,  a  railroad,  a  factory,  or  a  barn,  with  the  cer- 
tain fact  before  him,  that  the  greenbacks  he '  puts  into  his 
improvement,  will  in  two  years  be  worth  thirty-five  per  cent, 
more  than  his  improvement  is  worth.  .  .  .  When  that  day 


154  COIN  AND   PAPEE   CTJEEENCY. 

comes,  all  enterprise  will  be  suspended,  every  bank  will  have 
contracted  its  currency  to  the  lowest  limit,  and  the  debtor  will 
be  compelled  to  meet  in  coin  a  debt  contracted  in  currency ;  he 
will  find  the  coin  hoarded  in  the  Treasury,  no  adequate  rep- 
resentation of  coin  in  circulation,  his  property  shrunk,  not 
only  to  the  extent  of  the  appreciation  of  the  currency,  but 
still  more  by  the  artificial  scarcity,  made  by  the  holders  of 

gold To  attempt  this  task  by  a  surprise  on  our 

people,  by  arresting  them  in  the  midst  of  their  lawful  busi- 
ness, and  applying  a  new  standard  of  value  to  their  property, 
without  any  reduction^  to  their  debts,  or  giving  them  an  op- 
portunity to  compound  with  their  creditors,  or  to  distribute 
their  losses,  would  be  an  act  of  folly  without  an  example  of 
evil  in  modern  times." 

It  would  be  literally  impossible  for  you  to  have  drawn 
a  more  perfect  picture  of  the  scenes  of  wretchedness 
and  ruin,  that  you  so  manfully  opposed  in  the  Senate,  in 
1869,  a  policy,  which  you  then  declared  "was  an  act  of  folly 
without  an  example  in  ancient  or  modern  times." 

It  seems  unaccountable,  how  you,  with  your  views,  as  ex- 
pressed, could  have  drawn  the  Resumption  Act*  and  now 
use  all  the  powers  of  your  mighty  mind  to  consummate  a 
ruin  that  you  so  well  described  as  an  "  act  of  folly  without 
an  example  in  ancient  or  modern  times." 

Those  frightful  evils  you  then  predicted  in  the  Senate,  are 
now  being  painfully  verified  by  the  many  thousands  of  fail- 
ures, that  are  annually  taking  place  as  the  result  of  the  un- 
just and  unconstitutional  laws,  that  have  been  passed. 
Laws,  promising  to  pay  some  four  or  five  hundred  millions  in 
gold,  which  the  Government  did  not  possess  and  could  not 
command. 

The  Constitution  has  never  given  to  Congress  any  such 
unreasonable  power.  It  has  made  it  the  duty  of  Congress 
to  "  coin  the  money  and  regulate  the  value  thereof,"  without 
saying  whether  money  should  be  coined  out  of  gold,  silver, 
copper,  nickel,  or  paper. 

That  this  unconstitutional  promise  to  pay  money  in  gold, 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.         155 

which  they  could  not  command,  has  been  further  made  an 
occasion  for  Congress  to  listen  to,  and  adopt,  the  advice  of 
the  men,  who  control  the  moneyed  power  of  our  own  and 
other  countries.  These  men  have,  by  their  arts,  succeeded 
in  obtaining  from  our  Government  a  course  of  financial  legis- 
lation to  advance  their  own  interests  as  a  class.  They  have 
doubled  the  expenses  of  the  war  by  their  influence,  in  de- 
feating a  financial  law  in  the  Senate,  that  had  passed  the 
House  of  Representatives,  after  the  most  mature  considera- 
tion. 

The  banks  and  the  moneyed  interests  of  our  own  and  other 
countries  have  prevailed  on  our  Government  to  so  change  the 
laws,  as  to  make  the  bonds,  that  were  at  first  made  payable  in 
national  money  to  be  paid  in  coin.  They  next  got  the  law  so 
altered,  as  to  make  coin  mean  gold.  They  then  succeeded  in 
getting  the  gold  bonds  relieved  from  being  taxed  for  any  part 
of  the  burdens  of  the  State  or  National  Government.  It 
should  be  remembered,  that  all  bonds  were  originally  issued 
to  be  payable  in  currency.  This  currency  our  Government 
had  deliberately  depreciated  by  refusing  to  receive  it  for  du- 
ties on  imports,  or  interest  on  bonds. 

And  then  our  Government  allowed  war  taxes  to  continue, 
until  they  had  taken  from  the  people  the  very  money  the 
Government  had  stamped  and  paid  out,  as  so  many  dollars 
of  real  value,  made  legal  money,  to  be  used  as  a  national 
currency  to  enable  the  people  to  exchange  commodities,  and 
furnish  all  the  supplies,  that  were  needed  in  a  four  years' 
struggle  for  the  nation's  life. 

When  that  life  was  saved,  the  people  had  become  the  right- 
ful owners  of  both  their  currency  and  their  country. 

Our  Government  had  no  constitutional  right  to  invalidate 
contracts  by  lessening  the  volume  of  the  national  currency, 
after  the  same  had  been  issued  and  allowed  to  circulate  as 
legal  money  in  the  payment  of  debts  for  so  many  years. 

Such  money,  having  been  paid  out  by  the  Government  for 
"  value  received,"  cannot  be  lessened  in  volume,  without  in- 
validating contracts.  This  our  Government  has  done  by 


156  COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

having  drawn  from  the  people  their  money,  which  represents 
all  forms  of  labor  and  property  the  people  had  given  in  ex- 
change for  the  money  they  received. 

Was  it  not  a  most  absurd  act  of  legislation  to  invite  for- 
eign capital,  in  the  shape  of  gold,  to  take  up  our  good  money 
at  forty  arid  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar,  and  turn  that  money  into 
a  Government  bond  at  par,  payable,  both  principal  and  inter- 
est, in  gold?  Was  ever  a  nation  more  deliberately  and 
cruelly  put  under  a  heavy  yoke  of  bondage  by  its  rulers  ? 

All  these  unjust  acts  must  be  rescinded.  The  people  will 
not  submit  to  them,  when  they  come  to  know  their  true 
nature  and  purpose. 

It  must  be  manifest  to  all,  that  commerce  cannot  be  regu- 
lated with  foreign  nations,  and  among  the  several  States 
without  a  national  system  of  money  as  a  standard,  over 
which  Congress  can  exercise  an  entire  control.  This  can 
never  be  done  by  the  use  of  gold,  while  Congress  allows 
local  banks  to  expand  and  contract,  appreciate  and  depre- 
ciate the  money  of  the  country  in  their  own  interests  as  a 
class. 

Thomas  Jefferson  was  right  when  he  said  that  "BANK 

PAPER  MUST  BE  SUPPRESSED,  AND  THE  CIRCULATING  MEDIUM 
MUST  BE  RESTORED  TO  THE  NATION  TO  WHOM  IT  PROPERLY 

BELONGS."  He  wisely  declared,  that  "  it  is  the  only  fund,  on 
which  the  Government  can  rely  for  loans ;  it  is  the  only 
resource,  which  can  never  fail  them,  and  it  is  an  abundant 
one  for  every  necessary  purpose." 

I  find  it  impossible  to  frame  an  apology  for  a  Congress, 
that  could  make  an  unconstitutional  promise  to  pay  hundreds 
of  millions  in  gold,  which  they  could  not  command,  'instead 
of  promising  to  receive  such  money  as  the  Government  was 
compelled  to  issue  as  "  the  only  resource,  which  can  never 
fail  them." 

Money,  so  issued  and  accepted  by  the  people,  should  have 
been  considered,  as  it  was,  the  most  sacred  treasure  our 
country  had  ever  possessed.  It  should  have  been  held  as 
more  especially  precious,  after  it  had  fed  and  clothed  our 


COIN   AND   PAPEE   CTJEEENCY.  157 

armies,  and  had  carried  our  country  safely  through  a  most 
terrible  war,  proving  to  the  world,  that  President  Grant 
was  right,  when  he  declared,  that  the  money,  so  issued  by 
the  Government,  was  the  "best  currency  our  country  had 
ever  possessed,"  and  that  "there  was  no  mor.e  in  circulation 
than  was  needed  for  the  dullest  period  of  the  year." 

If  our  Government  had  taken  the  advice  of  Franklin, 
Jefferson,  Calhoun  and  Webster,  in  the  enactment  of  finan- 
cial laws,  they  would  never  have  put  our  country  in  the 
power  of  the  most  dangerous  community  of  banks,  that  ob- 
tained power  in  any  country.  They  would  also  have  saved 
to  our  country  the  one-half  of  the  cost  of  the  late  war,  and 
the  disgrace  of  being  compelled  to  sell  our  nation's  bonds 
at  some  fifty  or  sixty  per  cent,  below  the  face  value  of  the 
bonds. 

Senator  Beck,  of  Kentucky,  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States,  has  drawn  for  the  American  people  a  most  frightful 
picture  of  the  course  of  special  legislation,  that  has  taken 
from  the  people,  as  I  have  before  stated,  the  people's  money 
and  has  converted  the  same  into  a  national  debt. 

The  following  startling  amounts  have  been  wrung  from 
the  toiling  masses  of  the  American  people,  leaving  the  debt 
in  the  main  as  large  as  ever. 

The  Senator  says,  "  the  'bondholders  had,  up  to  1869,  re- 
ceived $100,000,000  of  profit  before  they  got  the  principal  of 
their  bonds  made  payable  in  gold" 

"  It  can  be  shown  by  the  Treasurer's  reports,  from  year 
to  year,  giving  the  amount  of  bonds  sold  each  year,  and  the 
premium  on  gold  from  1862  to  1869,  that  the  purchase  of 
the  bonds  with  paper  at  its  face  value,  and  the  purchase  of 
the  paper  at  the  discounts,  gave  a  profit  to  the  bondholders 
as  follows : 


158  COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY. 

AN   ACCOUNT    OF   THE    BONDHOLDERS'  CLEAR   PROFIT, 

arising  from  no  investments  at  all,  may  therefore  be  stated 
in  the  following  tabular  form  : 

1862 : $28,148,989 

1863 94,555,713 

1864. 306,551,582 

1865 140,159,367 

1866 53,757,183 

1867 167,915,741 

1868 253,159,765 

On  account  of  5  per  cent,  bonds 98,297,864 


Total $1,012,536,204 

This  most  remarkable  statement  was,  as  Senator  Beck  de- 
clared, "  carefully  and  truthfully  prepared."  The  proof  is 
in  the  official  records.  "  It  will  satisfy  the  country,"  says 
the  Senator,  "  and  ought  to  satisfy  the  bondholders  and  their 
advocates,  that  they  ought  not  to  insult  a  suffering  people, 
whose  hard  earnings  have  gone  to  enrich  them,  by  any  com- 
plaint of  want  of  good  faith  to  them,  in  the  effort  we  are 
making  to  save  the  country  from  bankruptcy." 

As  the  present  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  you  have  before 
you  all  the  facts,  referred  to  in  Spaulding's  and  other  his- 
tories of  the  public  debt. 

On  June  30,  1864,  there  were  outstanding  United  States 
notes : 

Greenbacks $431,178,670  84 

Postal  fractional  currency 22,894,877  25 

Interest-bearing  legal  tenders 168,571,377  25 

Certificates  of  indebtedness 160,720,000  00 

National  Bank  notes 25,825,695  00 

Old  State  Bank  circulation 135,000,000  00 


$944,190,620  34 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CUKKENCY.  159 

Amount  brought  forward $944,190,620  34 

Seven-thirty  Treasury  Notes,  temporary 
deposits,  for  which  certificates  were 
issued 72,356,150  00 


$1,016,546,770  34 

The  record  shows,  that  there  were  out- 
standing in  October,  1865,  $830,000,000 
of  seven-thirty  Treasury  Notes,  which, 
Assistant  Spinner  states,  were  engraved, 
stamped  and  paid  out  to  the  soldiers  as 
legal  tender  money,  at  the  close  of  the 
war 830,000,000  00 


Making $1,846,546,770  34 

This  amount  of  legal  money  was  paid  out  by  the  Govern- 
ment and  accepted  by  the  people  as  so  many  dollars  of  real* 
value,  and  had  thereby  become  the  people's  money,  which, 
as  I  said  before,  President  Grant  said,  "  was  the  best  cur- 
rency, that  our  country  had  ever  possessed." 

And  that  "  there  was  no  more  in  circulation  than  wras 
needed  for  the  dullest  season  of  the  year." 

Our  Government,  in  addition  to  all  the  other  acts  of  class 
legislation,  has  taken  from  the  American  people  their  small 
currency,  that  was  costing  them  nothing,  and  has  put  in  its 
place,  unsolicited  by  the  people,  a  more  inconvenient  silver 
currency,  thereby  creating  a  debt  of  some  forty  millions  of 
dollars  to  be  paid  by  the  already  overtaxed  people  of  our 
country. 

With  regard  to  the  demonetization  of  silver,  every  intel- 
ligent man  must  see,  that  inasmuch  as  silver  now  forms  more 
than  one-half  of  the  coin  money  of  the  world,  that  the  effect 
of  demonetizing  silver  must  not  only  lessen  the  volume  of 
the  world's  money,  but  must  appreciate  the  value  of  gold  in 
proportion  as  the  value  of  silver  has  been  reduced. 

The  plan  for  demonetizing  silver  is  said  to  have  been  first 


160         COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY. 

presented  to  the  great  bankers  of  Europe,  assembled  at  the 
great  Paris  Exposition. 

It  required  but  little  examination  to  show  them,  that  the 
demonetization  of  silver  would  appreciate  the  value  of  gold, 
and  add  hundreds  of  millions  to  their  wealth,  if  they  could 
only  persuade  the  American  Government  to  join  with  them 
in  the  demonetization  of  silver. 

These  bankers  appointed  a  committee  to  visit  our  Govern- 
ment for  the  accomplishment  of  their  object,  which,  as  the 
Congressional  Record  states :  "  The  suggestion  to  the 
House  Committee,  made  by  the  gentlemen  from  England  in 
regard  to  the  demonetization  of  silver,  was  incorporated  into 
the  House  Bill  and  passed." 

Nothing  can  be  more  important  for  us  as  a  nation,  than 
to  ascertain  and  remove  a  cause,  that  is  shrinking  the  value 
without  shrinking  debts  in  the  same  proportion.  Our  na- 
tional policy,  in  trying  to  force  specie  payments  on  a  debtor 
'country,  is  now  producing  a  similar  condition  of  wretched- 
ness to  that,  which  was  brought  on  England,  by  their  attempt 
to  force  specie  payments  on  that  country,  after  a  suspension 
of  more  than  twenty  years.  During  all  that  time  their  paper 
money  had  not  only  carried  their  country  through  their  wars 
with  Napoleon,  during  more  than  twenty  years  of  suspen- 
sion of  specie  payment,  but  that  same  paper  money  had 
secured  to  England  the  greatest  national  prosperity  ever 
known  in  that  country. 

This  policy,  according  to  Sir  Archibald  Alison,  brought 
on  England  a  greater  scene  of  widespread  bankruptcy  and  ruin 
than  all  the  wars,  pestilences,  and  famines,  which  had  ever 
afflicted  that  country.  .  Notwithstanding  the  warnings  of 
such  an  example,  Mr.  McCulloch,  in  his  address,  made  at 
the  banquet,  given  by  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  in  New 
York,  spoke  boastingly  of  his  earnest  efforts,  both  person- 
ally and  in  writing,'  with  Members  of  Congress,  in  trying  to 
persuade  them  to  allow  him  to  take  out  of  circulation  the 
people's  money,  which  (in  his  address)  he  states :  "  had  all 
the  legal  attributes  of  money." 


COIN   AKD   PAPEE   CUEEENCY.  161 

He  stated,  that  in  the  very  year,  in  which  the  war  closed, 
the  reduction  of  the  debt  was  commenced,  and  this  reduction 
has  been  steadily  continued,  to  the  amazement  of  foreign 
nations.  He  adds : 

"  In  none  of  the  Treasury  statements,  which  I  have  seen 
since  the  advent  of  the  administration,  has  any  mention 
been  made  of  the  reduction  of  the  debt,  previous  to  the 

present  one A  person,  looking  at  one  of  these 

statements,  would  suppose,  that  the  reduction  of  the  debt 
was  commenced  with  General  Grant's  administration  while 
in  fact  the  previous  reduction  had  been  reported  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  dollars,  according  to  the 
books  and  published  statements  of  the  Treasury,  while 
a  larger  sum  than  this  was  paid  to  the  War  and  Navy 
Department,  which  did  not  yet  appear  on  the  books  of  the 
Department." 

Thus  does  Mr.  McCulloch  speak  of  having  contracted  and 
taken  out  of  the  currency  of  the  country,  during  his  admin- 
istration, some  five  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  that  had  been 
paid  out  by  the  Government  and  received  by  the  people  as 
money  ;  possessing,  he  declared,  "  all  the  legal  attributes  of 
money" 

Secretary  McCulloch's  great  mistake  consisted  in  his  re- 
garding the  money,  actually  authorized  and  paid  out  by  the 
Government  for  value  received,  as  something  to  be  got  rid  of 
as  soon  as  possible. 

Mr.  McCulloch  stated  at  the  banquet,  that  the  legal 
money,  which  was  then  serving  the  country  so  well,  "  gave 
him  more  anxiety  than  all  the  rest  of  the  national  debt." 
It  seemed,  that  it  cost  him  much  writing  and  a  great 
deal  of  personal  effort  to  persuade  Senators  and  Mem- 
bers of  Congress  to  allow  him  to  take  from  the  American 
people,  by  a  continuation  of  war  taxes,  the  very  money  the 
people  had  received  as  dollars  in  payment  for  all  the  labor 
and  property,  that  had  been  consumed  in  the  prosecution  of 
the  war. 

I  do  not  wonder,  that  Mr.  McCulloch  found,  that  "  it  re- 
11 


162  COIN  AND   PAPEE  CURRENCY. 

quired  the  strongest  kind  of  personal  and  written  argu- 
ments '  to  persuade  Senators  and  Members  of  Congress  to 
allow  him  to  take  from  the- people  their  money  and  convert 
the  same  into  a  national  debt?  after  the  same  money  had 
been  allowed  to  circulate,  until  (as  I  have  said)  it  had  bought 
and  sold  many  times  more  in  value,  than  the  whole  property 
of  the  nation." 

If  crime  is  to  be  measured  by  the  misery  it  produces,  the 
the  act  of  taking  from  our  people  their  money,  and  convert- 
ing it  into  a  national  debt,  must  rank  as  one  of  the  most 
unjust  and  cruel  acts  ever  known  to  any  civilized  legislation. 
I  do  most  heartily  unite  with  Senator  Jones,  when  he  says  : 

"  The  present  is  the  acceptable  time  to  undo  the  unwit- 
ting and  blundering  work  of  1873,  and  to  render  our  legis- 
lation on  the  subject  of  money  comformable  to  the  Consti- 
tution of  our  country.  .  .  .  We  cannot,  we  dare  not, 
avoid  speedy  action  on  the  subject.  Not  only  does  reason, 
justice  and  authority  unite  in  urging  us  to  retrace  our  steps, 
but  the  organic  law  commands  us  to  do  so  ;  and  the  presence 
of  peril  enjoins  what  the  law  commands." 

The  claims  of  common  humanity,  with  all  that  can  move 
the  manhood  of  the  American  citizen,  demand  of  our 
Government  the  return  to  the  people  of  their  currency.  We 
must  get  back  our  currency.  This  can  be  done  in  a  way,  that 
will  restore  prosperity  to  the  paralyzed  industries  of  our  suf- 
fering country,  and  establish  justice  in  obedience  to  that 
first  most  imperious  requirement  of  the  Constitution.  It 
will  only  require  an  act  of  Congress,  declaring,  that  the 
people's  money,  actually  found  in  circulation  at  the  close  of 
the  war,  shall  be  returned^  as  I  have  said,  in  the  purchase  of 
all  the  outstanding  interest-bearing  bonds  of  the  Govern- 
ment. 

Such  a  national  policy  will  put  the  tools  of  trade  again  in 
the  hands  of  the  people,  and  will  enable  them  to  work  out 
their  salvation  from  the  enslavement  of  an  interest-bearing 
debt,  created  by  taking  their  own  money,  wrongfully  taken 
from  them,  and  then  by  converting  the  same  into  national 


COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  163 

interest-bearing  bonds,  that  now  hang  like  a  millstone  on 
the  neck  of  the  nation. 

In  the  fervent  desire  of  promoting  the  welfare   of  our 
common  country,  I  subscribe  myself, 

Yours  most  respectfully, 

PETER  COOPER. 


ADDRESS    AT   THE   CONVENTION    OF  THE  NATIONAL   PARTY, 
CONVENED  IN  BOSTON,  ^TH  OF  JUNE,  1879. 


FELLOW  CITIZENS  :  We  have  met  in  Convention  to  con- 
sider one  of  the  most  important  questions,  that  can  engage 
the  attention  of  the  American  people;  it  is  the  question 
—  "  What  share  shall  the  people  have  in  the  fiscal  Govern- 
ment and  the  Moneyed  Institutions  of  this  Republic  ?  It  is 
not  too  much  to  say,  that  it  is  now  not  only  the  most  im- 
portant question,  but  the  only  question,  next  to  that  of  the 
right  of  the  people  to  universal  and  free  education,  which  is 
left  to  be  decided,  in  order  to  secure  the  final  objects  of  the 
Constitution,  which  puts  into  the  power  of  the  people  of  this 
country  all  legislation  and  all  authority.  The  objects  are, 
as  stated  in  the  preamble  of  that  Constitution  —  "  To  estab- 
lish justice,  insure  domestic  tranquility,  provide  for  the 
common  defence,  promote  the  general  welfare,  and  secure 
the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  posterity." 

These  objects  can  never  be  obtained,  while  general  igno- 
rance and  general  poverty  prevail. 

It  is  not  how  rich  the  general  resources  of  a  country 
may  be,  or  how  wealthy,  learned  and  intelligent  certain 
classes  are,  that  make  the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  the 
people  ;  but  it  is  the  just  diffusion  of  the  wealth  and  advan- 
tage, which  the  common  country,  common  industry,  and  the 
general  powers  of  the  people  produce.  Monopolies  of  all 
kinds  must  be  at  the  expense  of  the  people  and  the  happiness 
of  the  whole  nation.  Let  us  then  always  turn  to  the  spirit, 
as  well  as  the  letter  of  our  Constitution,  in  discussing  all 
public  questions. 


164  COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY. 

Nothing  can  be  more  self-evident  than  the  fact,  that  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution  intended  by  its  preamble,  that 
every  law  which  is  passed,  should  be  in  conformity  with  its 
-requirements,  and  have  for  its  object  the  establishment  of 
justice  as  the  only  possible  means,  by  which  the  general  wel- 
fare of  a  nation  can  be  effectually  promoted. 

It  will  be  remembered  by  all,  who  have  read  what  I  have 
written  in  relation  to  a  National  Currency,  that  I  have 
uniformly  contended,  that  the  provision  of  the  Constitution, 
which  declares,  that  Congress  shall  have  the  power  "  To 
levy  and  collect  taxes,  duties,  imposts  and  excises  ;  to  pay 
the  debts  and  provide  for  the  common  defence  and  general 
welfare  of  the  United  States,"  is  all  that  is  needed  to 
authorize  Congress  to  issue  Treasury  Notes,  and  make  them 
receivable  for  all  forms  of  taxes,  duties  and  debts.  If  such 
a  course  of  national  policy  had  been  adopted  (instead  of  a 
national  money  with  a  part  of  its  purchasing  power  repu- 
diated by  an  act  of  Government),  it  would  have  lessened 
the  cost  of  the  civil  war  to  one-half  the  amount,  and  would 
have  saved  our  country  from  the  paralyzed  condition,  through 
which  it  has  been  compelled  to  pass. 

I  have  uniformly  endeavored  to  show,  that  our  General 
Government  holds  the  only  power,  authorized  to  coin  the 
money. of  the  country,  and  regulate  the  value  thereof; 
whether  it  be  coined  out  of  gold,  silver,  copper,  nickel,  or 
paper,  and  that  nothing  can  be  legal  money  without  the 
stamp  of  the  Government  on  it. 

In  all  that  I  have  written  on  the  subject,  I  have  endeav- 
ored to  adopt  the  broadest  principles,  that  conduce  to  the 
peace  and  happiness  of  my  country,  without  regard  to  party 
lines  or  party  affiliations. 

I  think,  that  the  neglect  of  our  several  administrations  to 
make  laws,  that  shall  properly  regulate  the  currency,  both  in 
volume  and  value,  has  been  a  greater  cause  of  demoraliza- 
tion, want  and  misery  among  the  mass  of  the  people,  than 
all  other  causes  combined. 

The  American  people  have  a  right  to  demand  of  their 


COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  165 

Government  a  substantial  reason  for  having  taken  from 
them  their  money,  used  bj  them  for  years  as  the  currency 
of  the  country  without  cost  to  the  Government.  Our  present 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  declared  in  the  Senate  that  "  every 
citizen  of  the  United  States  had  conformed  his  business  to 
the  clause  of  the.  law  regulating  the  currency  of  the  coun- 
try." 

I  believe  it  will  be  impossible  for  our  Government  to  show 
a  good  reason  for  having  taken  from  the  people  their  circu- 
lating notes,  possessing  (as  the  late  Secretary  McCulloch 
stated  at  the  banquet,  given  by  the  New  York  Chamber  of 
Commerce)  "all  the  legal  attributes  of  money."  The  Sec- 
retary at  the  same  time  said,  that,  "In  the  very  year,  in 
which  the  war  was  closed,  the  reduction  of  the  debt  was  com- 
menced, and  the  reduction  has  been  steadily  continued,  to 
the  amazement  of  foreign  nations." 

This  debt,  so  called,  was  also  "the  credit  of  a  great  nation, 
cut  up  into  small  pieces  and  circulated  as  money ; "  as  was 
well  said  by  -Secretary  Chase.  What  shall  we  think  of  the 
administration  of  a  Government,  expressly  designed,  "by 
the  people  and  for  the  people,"  that  should  turn  their  circu- 
lating credit  and  their  real  money,  into  a  debt  which  stops 
that  circulation,  vital  as  it  is  to  the  trade  and  prosperity  of 
this  people,  and  makes  it  a  burden  of  bonds  and  taxes  on 
their  industry  ? 

It  will  be  equally  impossible  to  show  a  good  reason  for 
having  taken  from  the  people  their  fractional  currency, 
which  was  costing  the  Government  nothing,  and  supplying 
its  place  with  a  more  inconvenient  currency,  at  the  cost  of 
thirty-two  millions  of  dollars,  added  to  the  National  debt. 

The  amount,  already  paid  by  the  people  as  interest  on  the 
National  debt,  apart  from  any  payments  on  account  of  the 
principal,  is  already  one  thousand,  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
four  millions  of  dollars. 

I  have  long  been  compelled  to  believe,  that  all  that  is  now 
or  ever  has  been  required  to  secure  permanently,  is  a  safe 
deposit  for  all  the  unoccupied  moneys  of  the  country,  and  an 


166  COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

ever  strengthening  bond  of  National  union,  as  well  as  the 
best  currency,  that  our  country  or  the  world  ever  saw,  will 
be  for  .the  Government  to  do  now,  what  should  have  been 
done  at  the  »close  of  the  civil  war, — and  at  the  close  of  the 
war  of  Eevolution  against  England — namely,  to  make  the 
people's  money,  found  in  circulation  at  the  close  of  the  war 
the  sole  money  of  the  country,  and  the  unfluctuating  meas- 
ure of  all  values,  receivable  for  all  forms  of  taxes,  duties 
and  debts,  and  interconvertible  with  the  interest-bearing 
bonds  of  the  Government,  which  should  bear  an  equitable 
but  low  rate  of  interest. 

It  should  be  remembered,  that  all  this  shrinkage  of  our 
currency  was  made,  while  the  Government  was  being  com- 
pelled to  disband  more  than  a  million  of  soldiers,  and  turn 
some  four  millions  of  emancipated  slaves  houseless  and 
homeless  on  the  community  to  find  employment,  food  and 
shelter,  or  to  starve. 

In  conclusion,  Fellow  Citizens,  I  shall  leave  the  full  dis- 
cussion of  this  National  question  to  those,  speeially  invited 
for  that  purpose.  I  wish  merely  to  express  to  you  my  pro- 
found sympathy  and  clear  convictions  in  the  cause,  for  which 
we  are  assembled. 

I  hope,  that  the  intelligence  and  education  of  Massachu- 
setts, which  stand  foremost  among  the  States,  will  be  brought 
to  bear  on  this  great  national  question — How  can  we,  as  a 
Republican  and  a  free  people,  control  the  Financial  Institu- 
tions and  the  policy  of  this  Government  in  the  interest  and 
prosperity  of  the  whole  people  ? 

It  is  evident,  that  some  fatal  errors  have  been  committed, 
some  where,  by  which  want,  ruin  and  distress  have  been  in- 
troduced, where  before  was  prosperity,  abundance  and  full 
employment  for  the  enterprise  and  industry  of  this  nation. 

Individuals  may  suffer  from  extravagance,  over-trading  or 
over-production ;  but  how  can  a  whole  nation  have  its  joy 
and  prosperity  turned  into  mourning,  but  by  the  fatal  errors 
of  its  ruling  classes,  which  make  the  laws,  and  can  thus 
mete  out  injustice  and  dry  up  the  resources  of  a  nation  by 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUKKENCY.         167 

rapacity  and  greed  of  gain,  instead  of  diffusing  happiness, 
education  and  freedom  among  the  people. 

Misgovernment  and  the  faults  of  the  ruling  class  have 
always  proved  in  history  the  trouble  and  sorrow  of  nations. 
All  the  responsibility  of  a  nation's  happiness,  which  may 
depend  on  a  people's  laws  and  administration,  must  rest 
upon  those,  who  are,  for  the  time,  the  law  making  and  ad- 
ministrative class. 

Though  the  influences,  that  are  now  working  against  the 
rights  of  labor  and  the  true  interests  of  a  Republican  Gov- 
ernment, are  insidious  and  concealed  under  plausible  rea- 
sons, yet  the  danger  to  our  free  institutions,  now,  is  no  less 
than  in  the  inception  of  the  rebellion,  that  shook  our  Re- 
public to  its  centre.  It  is  only  another  oligarchy,  another 
enslaving  power,  that  is  asserting  itself  against  the  interest 
of  the  whole  people.  There  is  fast  forming  in  this  country 
an  aristocracy  of  wealth — the  worst  form  of  aristocracy,  that 
can  curse  the  prosperity  of  any  country.  For  such  an  aris- 
tocracy has  no  country — "  absenteeism,"  living  abroad,  while 
they  draw  their  income  from  the  country,  is  one  of  its  com- 
mon characteristics.  Such  an  aristocracy  is  without  soul 
and  without  patriotism.  Let  us  save  our  country  from  this, 
its  most  potent,  and,  as  I  hope,  its  last  enemy.  I  beseech 
you,  fellow-citizens,  to  consider  well  what  the  crisis  of  the 
country  demands  of  you,  not  losing  sight  of  the  fact,  that 
there  are  great  wrongs  which  must  be  righted  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  finances  of  this  country  for  the  last  twelve 
years.  Old  issues  of  North  and  South  are,  in  a  great  meas- 
ure, passing  away,  but  there  is  no  section  of  our  common 
country,  that  needs  so  much  the  reviving  influence  of  an 
abundant  and  a  sound  currency,  as  the  South.  The  South- 
ern people  have  the  finest  natural  resources,  that  our  country 
affords ;  every  facility  for  manufacture — the  material,  labor 
and  water-power  indefinite.  They  need  only  money,  wisely 
distributed  among  its  working  and  enterprising  population, 
for  their  work  and  their  enterprise,  which  may  draw  out  the 
money,  and  put  it  to  the  best  use.  It  was  well  said,  lately, 


168         COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

by  one  of  the  Southern  statesmen,  that  the  "  Government 
had  impoverished,  discomfited,  and  crushed  the  South  more 
~by  its  financial  policy,  since  peace  was  declared,  than  ~by  its 
arms  during  the  whole  war  of  Rebellion  !  " 

If  the  people  can  look  for  no  relief  from  the  present  Con- 
gress and  Administration — if  those,  who  now  sway  the  finan- 
cial interests  of  the  country  cannot  see  their  great  oppor- 
tunity— then  new  men  must  be  chosen  by  the  people,  whom 
they  can  trust  to  make  laws,  and  execute  measures,  that 
"  shall  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  themselves  and  their 
posterity." 

I  will  close  my  remarks  by  a  quotation  from  a  speech  of 
Daniel  "Webster.  He  declared  that  "  The  producing  cause 
of  all  prosperity  is  labor,  labor,  labor.  The  Government 
was  made  to  protect  this  industry,  and  to  give  it  both  en- 
couragement and  security.  To  this  very  end,  with  this  pre- 
cise object  in  view,  power  was  given  to  Congress  over  the 
currency  and  over  the  money  of  the  country." 


LETTER  TO  HIS  EXCELLENCY  R.  B.  HAYES. 

HONORED  SIR:  Allow  me  to  assure  you,  that  nothing 
short  of  a  most  profound  anxiety  for  the  nation's  welfare 
could  induce  me,  in  this  eighty-ninth  year  of  my  age,  to 
make  another  efiort  to  call  and  fix  your  attention  on  the  un- 
measured importance  of  the  facts,  that  my  former  letters 
were  intended  to  press  on  your  immediate  consideration. 

Your  effort  to  secure  for  our  country  a  u  civil  service,"  as 
a  means  to  obtain  honesty  and  capacity  in  all  places  of  pub- 
lic trust,  is  a  matter  of  vital  importance  to  all  the  best  in- 
ests  of  our  common  country. 

You  will  recollect  how  ardently  I  expresse'd  to  you  my 
thanks  in  my  first  letter,  for  the  wise  and  patriotic  course 
you  had  then  adopted  in  the  discharge  of  the  delicate  and 
difficult  duties,  that  you  were  called  upon  to  perform.  The 
interest  you  had  then  manifested  in  the  nation's  welfare,  had 


COIN  AND  PAPER   CTJKKENCY.  169 

sent  a  thrill  of  hope  and  joy  into  the  hearts  of  suffering 
millions  throughout  the  whole  country.  They  were  then 
looking  to  you  with  an  anxious  hope,  that  you  would 
most  urgently  declare  and  insist,  that  all  officers,  in  every 
department  of  Government,  are  bound  by  the  solemnity 
of  their  oath  of  office  to  have  for  their  object,  in  every 
legislative  act,  the  establishment  of  justice,  by  the  organi- 
zation and  the  execution  of  Constitutional  laws,  as  that  is 
the  only  sure  means,  by  which  domestic  tranquility  can  be 
secured,  and  the  nation's  welfare  be  surely  and  effectually 
promoted. 

Instead  of  having  legislation  to  establish  justice,  it  now 
appears  by  the  laws  passed,  that  nearly  the  whole  course  of 
financial  legislation,  since  the  close  of  the  Rebellion,  has  been 
so  manifestly  cruel  and  unjust,  that  it  seems  impossible  to 
frame  an  apology  for  those,  who  have  taken  an  active  part 
in  framing  and  passing  laws  so  directly  in  violation  of  the 
very  letter  and  spirit  of  a  Constitution,  that  has  in  the  few- 
est possible  words  covered  the  whole  field  of  a  nation's 
wants.  The  Preamble  declares  "That  we,  the  people,  in 
order  to  establish  justice,  secure  domestic  tranquility,  pro- 
vide for  the  common  defence,  PROMOTE  THE  GENERAL  WEL- 
FARE, and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  for  ourselves  and 
our  posterity,  do  ordain  this  Constitution  for  the  people  of 
these  United  States." 

To  show  the  danger,  that  must  result  to  the  American 
people  by  continuing  to  allow  our  present  system  of  National 
Banks,  authorized  as  they  are,  to  issue  paper  "  promises  to 
pay"  gold  and  silver  on  demand,  when  they  should  have 
always  been  compelled  to  bank  on  national  fiat  money,  made 
receivable  on  a  par  with  gold  and  silver  at  its  present  value, 
weight  and  fineness,  let  us  refer  to  the  founders  of  our  Con- 
stitution, etc 

I  am  at  a  loss  to  see  how  it  could  have  been  possible  to 
obtain  such  a  course  of  financial  laws  as  those,  that  have 
been  passed,  commencing,  as  they  did,  by  paying  out  paper 
money  to  circulate  as  legal  dollars,  and  then,  by  an  act  of 


170  COIN  AND   PAPEK   CUKKENCY. 

Congress,  took  from  the  people's  legal  money  its  power  to 
pay  duties  on  imports  or  interest  on  bonds. 

The  bankers  and  dealers  in  gold  were  not  satisfied  with 
the  privilege  of  buying  bonds,  made  payable  in  currency  at 
half  their  face  value,  with  the  right  to  deposit  said  bond 
with  the  Government,  who  agrees  to  receive  (said  bond)  and 
pay  interest  on  the  same  at  its  face  value,  and  give  bankers 
$90,000  and  interest  on  $100,000,  in  good  money,  guaran- 
teed by  the  Government,  to  enable  them  to  carry  on  National 
Banks. 

The  bankers  were  not  satisfied  with  receiving  interest  on 
the  value  of  their  bonds  in  currency.  They  obtained  an  in- 
validating law,  that  made  the  bonds,  that  were  originally 
issued  to  be  paid  in  currency,  made  payable  in  coin.  Another 
act  made  the  coin  to  mean  gold,  and  another  act  relieved 
the  gold  bond  from  bearing  any  part  of  the  public  burden 
of  taxation  by  either  State  or  Nation. 

Not  satisfied  still,  the  Government  has  taken  from  the 
people  their  small  currency,  that  was  costing  them  nothing, 
and  has  given  in  exchange  a  less  convenient  currency,  that 
has  now  bound  the  people  to  pay  interest  on  some  fifty 
millions  of  dollars,  at  four  per  cent,  quarterly,  for  thirty 
years. 

The  money  powers  of  our  own  and  other  countries  per- 
suaded our  Government  to  demonetize  silver,  when  it  was 
known  to  be  a  large  product  of  our  own  country,  and,  at  the 
time,  some  three  per  cent,  more  valuable  than  gold. 

The  most  cruel  of  the  laws,  that  have  peen  passed,  was 
the  one  that  took  from  the  people  their  money,  made  legal 
by  all  the  forms  of  law,  known  to  our  Government. 

That  money  had  been  allowed  to  circulate  as  legal  dollars 
in  the  pay  of  the  soldier,  the  sailor,  the  farmer,  mechanic 
and  merchant,  in  exchange  for  all  forms  of  labor  and  prop- 
erty, purchased  by  the  Government,  and  consumed  in  the 
prosecution  of  the  war.  That  money  had  become  the  life- 
blood  of  tjie  trade  and  commerce  of  the  country. 

When  the  war  ended,  the  exact  amount,  found  in  circu- 


COIN   AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY.  171 

lation,  was  known,  and  that  amount  should  have  been  de- 
clared the  permanent  unfluctuating  measure  of  all  values  for 
all  coming  time,  and  never  allowed  to  be  increased  or  dimin- 
ished, only  as  per  capita  with  the  increase  or  diminution  of 
the  inhabitants  of  our  country. 

It  was  the  nation's  currency r,  such  as  France  issued  and 
received  for  all  taxes,  duties  and  debts  throughout  its  des- 
perate struggle  for  that  nation's  life.  The  French  Govern- 
ment, instead  of  taking  from  their  people  the  paper  money, 
as  soon  as  the  German  war  was  ended ;  instead  of  contract- 
ing their  currency  as  our  Government  has  done,  the  French 
Government  added  some  250  millions  more  to  their  paper  cir- 
culation, and  in  addition  to  that  great  increase  of  their  paper 
money,  their  Government  authorized  temporary  loans  to  be 
made  on  goods  by  all  principal  cities  of  France.  This  wise 
and  just  policy  saved  France  from  the  terrible  consequence 
of  a  panic  like  that,  which  was  brought  on  our  own  country 
by  an  unjust  and  unwise  contraction  of  our  nation's  currency — 
a  policy,  that  brought  wretchedness  and  ruin  to  the  homes 
of  millions. 

That  truly  wise  and  just  policy  of  France  has  carried  that 
country  to  a  pinnacle  of  greatness  among  the  nations  of  the. 
Earth ;  while  the  policy  of  our  Government  is  rapidly  pro- 
ducing a  money  power  fearful  to  contemplate. 

Thomas  Jefferson  declared  a  most  important  truth,  that 
should  never  be  forgotten.  He  says  that  "the  power  to 
issue  Treasury  Notes  bearing  or  not  bearing  interest,  is  a 
fund  that  can  never  fail." 

It  was  unfortunate  for  our  country,  that  the  advice  of 
Thomas  Jefferson  could  not  have  been  taken,  when  he  said, 
"  bank  paper  must  be  suppressed,  and  the  circulating  medium 
must  be  restored  to  the  people  to  whom  it  ^belongs"  He 
wisely  declared,  "  that  it  is  the  only  fund,  on  which  Govern- 
ment can  rely  for  loans.  It  is  the  only  resource,  which  can 
never  fail  them,  and  it  is  an  abundant  one  for  every  neces- 
sary purpose."  Had  the  advice  of  Jefferson,  Franklin,  Cal- 
houn  and  Webster  been  taken,  the  cost  of  our  late  war  would 


172  COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

have  been  not  more  than  half  the  amount,  that  was  ex- 
pended, and  our  country  would  have  been  saved  from  the 
disgrace  of  selling  its  bonds  for  forty  or  fifty  cents  on  the 
dollar. 

When  I  was  last  in  Washington,  in  conversation  with  Mr. 
Evarts,  I  said  to  him,  that  "  I  believed  the  time  had  come, 
when  this  great  American  question  of  national  finance  must 
be  settled,  and  that  it  must  be  settled  in  the  interest  of  the 
great  mass  of  the  American  people,  and  not  in  tJie  interest 
of  the  moneyed  classes,  as  it  is  now" 

I  am  glad  to  find  that  those,  who  are  striving  to  drive  our 
country  back  into  the  "  barbarism  "  of  a  metallic  basis  for 
currency,  are  fast  giving  way  for  want  of  argument.  It  is 
being  discovered,  that  all  the  great  writers,  who  have 
analyzed  the  subject,  and  have  viewed  it  from  a  scientific 
standpoint,  come  to  the  conclusion,  that  paper  money  is 
superior  to  metal  for  a  currency.  Even  Ricardo,  the  bul- 
lionist,  allows  this.  He  says,  that  a  "  regulated  paper  cur- 
rency is  so  great  an  improvement  in  commerce,  that  I  would 
greatly  regret,  if  prejudice  should  induce  us  to  return  to  a 
system  of  less  utility." 

The  following  resume,  found  in  a  late  paper,  expresses 
my  opinions  on  the  whole  subject  of  our  national  finances: 


''1st.  The  Government  should  issue  all  the  currency, 
that  is  used  by  the  people,  whether  it  be  gold,  silver  or 
paper,  and  it  should  all  be  made  a  legal  tender  for  ALL 
debts,  public  and  private. 

2d.  The  coinage  of  both  gold  and  silver  should  be 
unlimited,  and  the  Government  should  coin  all  the  gold  and 
silver  bullion  it  can  procure,  and  coin  without  loss. 

3d.  All  surplus  currency,  now  in  the  Treasury,  should  be 
used  to  cancel  bonds,  and  thus  stop  interest  on  the  same. 

4th.  Government  paper  should  be  substituted  for  national 
bank  notes. 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CUKKENCY.          173 

5th.  The  Government  should  secure  to  the  people  the 
same  volume  of  money,  with  which  to  pay  their  debts,  that 
was  in  circulation,  when  those  debts  were  contracted. 

Government  postal  savings  banks  should  be  established 
in  all  our  large  cities  and  villages,  where  the  surplus  money 
of  the  people  can  be  deposited :  and  the  money,  thus  de- 
posited, should  be  used  by  the  Government  to  cancel  the 
public  debt  and  to  promote  such  public  improvements,  as 
would  be  of  value  to  the  whole  people." 

All  these  invalidating  financial  laws  were  passed  in  direct 
opposition  to  the  warning  advice,  given  by  your  present 
Secretary,  Sherman,  when  in  the  Senate,  1869.  He  then 
described,  in  language  never  to  be  forgotten,  the  scenes  of 
misery  and  ruin,  that  would  come  upon  our  country,  as  a 
consequence  of  taking  away  from  the  people  the  legal  money 
they  had  received  in  payment  for  all  the  labor  and  property 
they  had  passed  into  the  possession  of  the  Government,  in 
exchange  for  the  legal  dollars  they  had  received.  Secretary 
Sherman  was  right,  when  in  the  Senate,  1869,  he  declared 
that  "every  citizen  in  the  United  States. had  conformed  his 
business  to  the  legal  tender  clause  of  the  law,  regulating  the 
currency  of  the  country."  He  declared  that,  "  the  apprecia- 
tion of  the  currency  is  a  far  more  distressing  operation  than 
Senators  supposed."  He  then  stated  : 

"  It  is  not  possible  to  take  this  voyage  without  the  sorest 
distress  to  every  person,  except  a  capitalist  out  of  debt,  or  a 
salaried  officer  or  annuitant.  It  is  a  period  of  loss,  danger, 
lassitude  of  trade,  fall  of  wages,  suspension  of  enterprise, 
bankruptcy  and  disaster.  To  every  railroad  it  is  an  addi- 
tion of  one-third  to  the  burden  of  its  debts,  and  more  than 
that  deduction  to  the  value  of  its  stock.  *  *  *  It  means 
the  ruin  of  all  dealers,  whose  debts  become  twice  their 
(business)  capital,  though  one-third  less  than  their  actual 
property.  It  means  the  fall  of  all  agricultural  productions, 
without  any  great  reduction  of  taxes.  What  prudent  man 
would  dare  to  build  a  house,  a  railroad,  a  factory,  or  a  barn 
with  the  certain  fact  before  him,  that  the  greenbacks  he 


174  COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY. 

puts  into  his  improvement,  will  in  two  years  be  worth 
thirty-five  per  cent,  more  than  his  improvement  is  worth. 
•*  *  #  When  that  day  comes  all  enterprise  will  be  sus- 
pended, every  bank  will  have  contracted  its  currency  to  the 
lowest  limit,  and  the  debtor  will  be  compelled  to  meet  in  a 
coin  debt,  contracted  in  currency ;  he  will  find  the  coin 
hoarded  in  the  Treasury,  no  adequate  representation  of  coin 
in  circulation,  his  property  shrunk,  not  only  to  the  extent  of 
the  appreciation  of  the  currency,  but  still  more  by  the  artifi- 
cial scarcity  made  by  the  holders  of  gold.  *  *  *  To  at- 
tempt this  task  by  a  surprise  on  our  people,  by  arresting 
them  in  the  midst  of  their  lawful  business,  and  applying  a 
new  standard  of  value  to  their  property,  without  any  reduc- 
tion of  their  debts,  or  giving  them  an  opportunity  to  com- 
pound with  their  creditors,  or  to  distribute  their  losses, 
would  be  an  act  of  folly  without  an  example  of  evil  in 
modern  times." 

Secretary  Sherman's  whole  speech  in  the  Senate  was  in- 
tended to  show,  that  a  nation's  currency  could  not  be  con- 
tracted without  bringing  ruin  on  the  debtors  and  on  the 
laboring  classes  throughout  our  country. 

In  my  late  appeal  to  all  legislators  and  religious  teachers, 
I  have  demonstrated  a  fact,  that  cannot  be  disproved,  viz., 
that  all  the  legal  money,  paid  out  by  the  Government  for 
labor  and  property  during  the  war,  was,  beyond  all  con- 
troversy, the  PEOPLE'S  MONEY.  The  money,  having  been 
wrongfully  taken  from  the  people,  must  in  order  to  establish 
justice,  be  given  back  to  them  in  the  purchase  of  all  the  out- 
standing interest-bearing  bonds  of  the  Government,  in  exact 
accordance  with  the  law,  under  which  they  were  issued. 

By  this  plan  a  partial  justice  can  be  established,  and  the 
general  welfare  of  the  nation  can  be  surely  and  effectually 
promoted. 

This  plan  will  return  to  all  the  original  holders  of  Govern- 
ment bonds  nearly  double  the  amount  in  the  same  kind  of 
legal  money,  that  was  paid  for  the  bonds  at  the  time  they 
were  first  issued. 


COIN   AND   PAPEE  CURRENCY.  175 

The  nearest  possible  approach,  that  can  be  made  to  the 
establishment  of  justice  in  the  regulation  of  the  currency, 
would  be  to  pay  off  the  national  debt,  in  strict  accordance 
with  the  requirements  of  the  law,  under  which  it  was  con- 
tracted, by  an  issue  of  legal  tender  money,  which  would 
stop  the  interest  of  so  much  debt  and  have  one  form  of 
money  for  ALL  PURPOSES  throughout  our  country.  The  ad- 
vantages of  paying  off  the  national  debt  in  legal  money, 
would  be  many  and  great.  It  would  throw  back  the  money, 
wrongfully  taken,  into  the  hands  of  the  people,  who  own  it, 
and  make  them  responsible  for  the  use  of  their  own  money, 
in  all  the  forms  of  trade  and  commerce  in  the  country.  This 
money,  so  paid  back  to  the  people,  would  start  all  kinds  of 
enterprise.  Nothing  is  more  certain  than  the  fact,  that  we 
can  never  have  continuous  prosperity  in  the  trade  and  com- 
merce of  our  country,  so  long  as  we  allow  ourselves  to  de- 
pend on  a  paper  circulation,  PROMISING  TO  PAY  SILVER  AND 
GOLD  ON  DEMAND.  All  the  bank  failures  of  the  past  compel 
me  to  believe,  that  the  banks  of  the  future  will  be  like  those 
of  the  past — they  will  be  compelled  to  fail,  whenever  an 
unexpected  foreign  demand  is  made  on  them  for  the  silver 
and  gold  in  their  possession. 

APPENDIX. 

A  most  frightful  picture  of  the  course  of  special  legisla- 
tion, that  has  taken  from  the  people,  as  I  have  before  stated, 
the  people's  money,  and  has  converted  the  same  into  a 
national  debt. 

The  following  startling  amounts  have  been  wrung  from 
the  toiling  masses  of  the  American  people,  leaving  the  debt 
in  the  main  as  large  as  ever. 

Senator  Beck  says : 

"  The  bondholders  had  up  to  1869,  received  $100,000,000 
of  profit,  before  they  got  the  principal  of  their  bonds  pay- 
able in  gold. 

It  can  be  shown  by  the  Treasurer's  report,  from  year  to 


176  COm  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 


year,  giving  the  amount  of  bonds,  sold  each  year,  and  the 
premium  of  gold  from  1862  to  1869,  that  the  purchase  of 
the  bonds  with  paper  at  its  face  value,  and  the  purchase  of 
the  paper  at  the  discounts,  gave  a  profit  to  the  bondholders 
as  follows  : 

An  Account  of  the  bondholders'  Clear  Profits, 

arising  from  an  investment  may  therefore  be  stated  in  the 
following  tabular  form  : 

1862  ......  $28,138,989 

1863  ......  94,555,713 

1864  .......  306,551,582 

1865  ......  110,158,367 

1866  .        .        .        .        .        .  53,757,183 

1867  ......  167,915,741 

1868  ...'...  253,150,765 
On  account  of  5  per  cent,  bonds     .  98,297,864 

Total,     ....          $1,012,536,204 
This  most  remarkable  statement  was,  as  Senator  Beck 
declared,   "  carefully  and  truthfully  prepared.     The  proof 
is  in  the  official  records.     It  will  satisfy  the  country,  and 
ought  to  satisfy  the  bondholders  and  their  advocates." 

The  policy  of  contracting  England's  currency  after  a  sus- 
pension of  specie-  payments  for  more  than  twenty  years 
actually,  according  to  sir  Archibald  Alison,  brought  on  Eng- 
land a  greater  scene  of  widespread  bankruptcy  and  ruin, 
than  all  the  wars,  pestilences  and  famines  that  had  ever 
afflicted  the  country.  Notwithstanding  the  warnings  of  such 
an  example,  Mr.  McCulloch,  in  his  address,  made  at  the 
banquet,  given  by  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  in  New  York, 
spoke  boastingly  of  his  earnest  efforts,  both  personally  ,and 
in  writing,  with  Members  of  Congress,  in  trying  to  persuade 
them  to  allow  him  to  take  out  of  circulation  the  people's 
money,  which  (in  his  address)  he  states  :  "  had  all  the  legal 
attributes  of  money." 

My  age  and  experience,  have  compelled  me  to  believe, 


COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  177 

that  mankind,  as  individuals,  communities,  states  and  na- 
tions, will  improve  and  better  their  condition,  just  so  far  as 
they  come  to  see,  know  and  understand,  that  what  a  man, 
an  individual,  a  community,  a  state,  or  a  nation,  "  soweth, 
that  must  they  also  reap,"  somewhere,  somehow,  and  at 
some  time,  and  that  by  the  operation  of  a  reign  of  universal 
and  beneficent  laws,  designed  in  infinite  wisdom  for  the  use 
and  elevation  of  mankind.  They  are  laws  that  in  themselves 
are  so  wise  and  good,  that  they  will  never  require  to  be 
altered,  amended,  or  revoked.  They  are  laws,  that  bind 
every  member  of  the  Government  to  act  with  the  same  intel- 
ligent economy  and  care,  that  a  wise  and  good  individual 
would  adopt,  if  the  whole  community  were,  every  one,  mem- 
bers of  his  own  family. 

I  am  in  fervent  hope,  that  the  day  will  come,  when  men 
will  realize  what  the  poet  says  : 

*     *  "A  nature  rational,  implies  the  power 
Of  being  as  blest  or  wretched,  as  we  please  ; 
And  he  that  would  be  barred  capacity  of  pain 
Courts  incapacity  of  bliss, 
Heaven  wills  our  happiness,  allows  our  doom, 
Invites  us  ardently,  but  not  compels." 

PETER  COOPER. 


LETTER  TO  SENATOR  BECK. 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  I  see  that  Sherman  is  making  a  desperate 
effort  in  the  Senate,  to  force  a  vote  on  his  3  per  cent,  fund- 
ing bill  at  as  early  a  day  as  possible. 

The  people  of  this  country,  who  have  given  some  atten- 
tion to  the  financial  question,  are  watching  with  deep  inter- 
est the  discussion,  that  is  taking  place  in  reference  to  this 
bill.  This  bill  cannot  be  regarded  in  any  other  light  by  in- 
telligent minds,  than  an  effort  on  the  part  of  those,  who  ad- 
vocate it,  to  fasten  a  portion  of  the  public  debt  upon  the 
people,  so  that  it  cannot  easily  be  paid,  and  to  perpetuate 
the  existence  of  the  National  Banks. 
12 


178         COIN  ANP  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

Senators,  who  support  this  bill,  will  not,  as  I  believe,  in 
the  future,  be  supported  by  the  people. 

I  sincerely  hope,  that  you  will  make  one  of  your  ablest 
speeches  in  opposition  to  this  bill,  and  in  favor  of  abolish- 
ing bank  currency,  as  fast  as  the  charters  of  these  banks  ex- 
pire. This  whole  system  of  issuing  money  and  making  it  a 
gratuity  to  rich  bankers,  is  one  of  the  most  infamous  frauds, 
ever  perpetrated  upon  the  people. 

Now,  can  any  plausible  reason  be  given,  why  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  should  issue  $362,000,000  of 
notes,  and  endow  such  notes  with  the  function  of  money, 
and  practically  make  them  a  free  gift  to  rich  bankers,  while 
the  masses  of  the  people  have  to  work  for  every  dollar  of 
this  money,  that  comes  into  their  possession  ? 

Why,  Sir,  if  this  volume  of  currency  was  issued  in  the 
form  of  legal  tender  notes,  the  working  classes  of  this  coun- 
try would  supply  for  it  the  labor  and  material,  requisite  to 
build  two  lines  of  double-track  railroad  from  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Pacific  coast,  and  fully  equip  those  roads,  and  in  ad- 
dition thereto,  construct  fifty  first-class  ocean  steamers,  by 
which  the  question  of  cheap  transportation,  both  at  home 
and  abroad,  could  forever  be  settled  in  the  interests  of  the 
people. 

Railroads,  built  in  this  way,  would  be  owned  by  the  peo- 
ple, and  through  them  they  could  interchange  their  products, 
without  having  more  than  half  of  them  consumed  in  pay- 
ing large  dividends  on  watered  stocks,  and  higher  interest 
on  preferred  stocks  in  fact,  without  paying  interest  on  any 
stocks  or  bonds  whatever.  Why  not  introduce  a  bill,  that 
shall  make  provision  for  retiring  bank  currency  as  the 
bank  charters  expire,  and  to  substitute  for  the  notes  of  the 
expiring  banks,  Treasury  notes  made  legal  tender,  and  at  the 
option  of  the  Government  redeemable  in  coin,  or  in  a  three 
per  cent,  interconvertible  bond,  and  put  the  Treasury  notes 
thus  issued  in  circulation  by  providing  cheap  transportation 
routes  for  the  people,  as  I  have  here  indicated  ? 

Why  should  the  people,  who  create  the  wealth  of  the  na- 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  179 

tion,  be  compelled  to  contribute  the  largest  share  of  that 
wealth  to  the  owners  of  the  money,  and  the  owners  of  the 
transportation  lines,  the  medium  through  which  the  products 
of  the  people's  labor  are  interchanged  ? 

Why  should  Messrs.  Gould,  Yanderbilt,  Sage,  Miller, 
Huntington,  Crooker,  other  railroad  managers,  and  a  few 
hundred  bankers  in  New  York  be  permitted  to  accumulate 
their  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars,  by  simply  controlling 
the  money  and  transportation,  that  should  belong  to  the 
whole  people  ? 

Is  it  not  because  we  have  men  of  John  Sherman's  stamp  in 
the  United  States  Senate  and  in  Congress,  who  are  legisla- 
ting in  the  interest  of  these  parties  ? 

Is  it  not  about  time,  that  such  men  should  step  aside  and 
the  true  Representatives  of  the  people's  interest,  should  step 
to  the  front  and  pass  measures  for  the  benefit  of  the  people, 
and  not  solely  for  that  of  rich  bankers  and  railroad  mag- 
nates ? 

If  this  3  per  cent,  funding  bill  of  John  Sherman  should 
pass,  the  bonds  it  provides  for  issuing  would  command  a 
premium  in  one  year  of  four  or  five  per  cent.,  which  would 
be  two  or  three  times  the  amount  of  interest  saved  over  the 
3^  per  cent. 

Besides  this  with  our  surplus  revenues,  it  would  only  re- 
quire about  3^  years  to  pay  off  every  one  of  the  3^  per  cent, 
bonds. 

This  cry  of  Mr.  Sherman  of  "  saving  interest "  is  just  a 
pretense  on  his  part ;  the  real  object  of  the  bill  is  to  per- 
petuate the  public  debt,  and  by  that  means  to  continue  to 
issue  bank  currency.  The  whole  system  of  issuing  currency 
by  banks,  whether  they  are  private,  State  or  National,  is 
one  that  will  bring  panics,  wide-spread  bankruptcy  and  finan- 
cial ruin. 

It  is  a  perpetual  scheme  for  inflation  and  contraction,  for 
sending  the  prices  of  property  up  and  sending  them  down  ; 
for  permitting  people  to  get  in  debt  on  bank  paper  and  forc- 
ing them  to  pay  those  debts  in  coin  for  selling  property, 


180  COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY. 

when  it  is  high,  and  buying  it  on  foreclosure,  when  it  is 
low. 

About  every  ten  years  the  business  men  of  this  country 
are  forced  through  bankruptcy,  and  their  property  is  ab- 
sorbed by  bankers  and  money  lenders  through  the  process. 

I  send  you,  herewith,  some  documents,  which  contain  ta- 
bles, taken  from  the  finance  report,  which  will  show  you 
how  inflation  and  contraction  was  carried  on  under  the  old 
State  bank  system ;  and  also  show  what  a  system  of  legal- 
ized fraud  the  present  system  of  National  Banks  would  be- 
come, if  the  legal  tenders  were  destroyed  and  the  tax  on 
bank  circulation  removed. 

I  also  send  you  a  copy  of  my  letter  to  Secretary  Folger, 
reviewing  his  last  report. 

I  trust  you  will  examine  these  documents  carefully,  and 
that  your  voice  will  be  heard  with  great  clearness  on  this 
subject,  before  a  vote  is  taken  on  this  bill  of  Mr.  Sher- 
man. 

Congress  should  at  once  prohibit  any  further  refunding  of 
the  public  debt,  and  should  pay  the  debt  as  fast  as  possible. 
It  should  also  prohibit  any  further  re-charter  of  the  National 
Banks,  or  the  issue  of  any  more  bank  currency  of  any  kind. 
It  should  provide  also  for  the  unlimited  coinage  of  gold  and 
silver,  for  the  issue  of  gold  and  silver  certificates,  and  for 
legal  tender  notes,  to  take  the  place  of  the  notes  of  the 
National  Banks,  as  fast  as  their  charters  expire.  In  addition 
to  this  it  should  provide  cheaper  transportation  and  Post 
Office  Savings  Banks  for  the  people. 

This  will  secure  the  best  interests  of  those,  who  create  the 
wealth  of  the  nation  by  labor,  and  not  solely  of  those,  who 
absorb  that  wealth  through  class  legislation  and  special 
privileges. 

One  reason  why  Mr.  Sherman  is  pushing  this  3  per  cent, 
bill  is,  that  $243,000,000  of  the  bonds  now,  held  by  the 
Treasury  to  secure  bank  currency,  are  3J  per  cents,  and  by 
paying  these  off  as  rapidly  as  is  now  being  done,  the  banks 
are  compelled  to  surrender  their  circulation,  or  pay  a  high 


COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  181 

premium  for  4£  per  cent,  bonds  to  be  held  as  their  legal  re- 
serve, and  as  security  for  these  notes. 

The  questions  of  currency  and  the  payment  of  the  pub- 
lic debt  are  of  vast  importance  to  the  American  people.  The 
future  stability  and  prosperity  of  our  Government  depend 
greatly  upon  a  wise  settlement  of  these  momentous  inter- 
ests. 

The  American  people  will  never  allow  these  subjects  to 
rest  quietly,  until  they  are  safely  moored  to  those  sure  foun- 
dation principles  of  eternal  truth  and  justice,  on  which  our 
Fathers  placed  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  The 
Constitution  was  designed  to  establish  a  Government  of  the 
people  for  the  people,  and  make  it  a  shield  of  protection 
for  the  unsuspecting  masses  of  the  people  against  those,  who 
are  resorting  to  all  forms  of  art  to  obtain  property  without 
labor.  The  framers  of  the  Constitution  would  never  have 
recommended  one  kind  of  money  for  the  Government,  an- 
other for  the  people,  and  another  for  the  banks. 

In  settling  these  questions  of  debt  and  currency  we  should 
be  governed  by  the  opinions  of  such  a  staunch  champion  of 
Democracy  as  Thomas  Jefferson. 

That  great  statesman  and  philosopher,  Benjamin  Franklin. 

That  life-long  Democrat  and  statesman,  John  C.  Cal- 
houn. 

Herbert  Spencer,  who  is  regarded  as  one  of  the  first 
writers  and  ablest  thinkers  of  his  age,  says  : 

"  England  herself  does  not  in  reality  base  her  currency 
on  specie,  nor  could  she  without  bringing  all  business  to  a 
dead  stop  in  a  very  short  time.  She  just  mixes  enough  of 
this  specie  basis  fiction  in  her  finances  to  continually  or 
periodically  divest  the  laboring  classes  of  their  earnings  for 
the  benefit  of  the  nobility.  But  for  the  real  basis  of  value 
to  her  currency,  she  makes  the  notes  of  the  Bank  of  Eng- 
land, as  well  as  her  coins,  a  full  legal  tender  for  the  pay- 
ment of  debts,  but  not  the  notes  of  the  other  banks.  From 
this  we  see,  that  even  in  England  specie  basis  is  a  mere  fic- 
tion, a  false  pretence." 


182  COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

I  see,  that  suggestions  are  being  made  by  the  officers  of 
the  Government,  and  bills  are  being  introduced,  which  aim 
to  destroy  the  legal  tenders  or  remove  their  legal  tender 
quality.  This  could  not  be  done,  except  with  the  greatest 
hazard. 

Our  Government,  having  been  literally  compelled  to  issue 
and  use  a  legal  tender  paper  money,  in  order  to  save  the  na- 
tion's life,  has,  by  its  use,  caused  the  whole  property  of  the 
country  to  be  measured  by  its  purchasing  power.  By  this 
use^  of  paper  money  the  Government  has  created  a  most 
solemn  obligation  on  its  part  to  do  no  act  to  increase  or  di- 
minish the  amount  of  paper  money  beyond  the  absolute  ne- 
cessities of  the  Government.  As  an  increase  of  the  amount 
would  inflate  prices  without  increasing  real  values,  in  the 
same  proportion  a  diminution  of  currency  must  cause  all 
property  to  shrink  in  price,  and  .thereby  put  it  out  of  the 
power  of  the  people  to  pay  their  debts. 

One  thing  is  certain,  that  the  public  and  private  debts  can 
never  be  paid  by  a  governmental  policy,  that  shrinks  the  cur- 
rency, destroys  values,  paralyzes  industry,  enforces  idleness, 
and  brings  wretchedness  and  ruin  to  the  homes  of  millions 
of  the  American  people. 

It  is  equally  true,  that  Americans  can  never  buy  anything 
cheap  from  foreign  countries,  that  must  be  bought  at  the  ex- 
pense of  leaving  our  own  good  raw  materials  unused,  and 
our  own  labor  unemployed.  It  should  be  remembered,  that 
neither  gold,  silver,  copper,  nickel,  nor  paper  are  money, 
without  the  stamp  of  the  Government  upon  it.  The  Con- 
stitution has  made  it  the  duty  of  Congress  to  coin  the  money 
of  our  country,  regulate  the  value  thereof  and  fix  a  standard 
of  weights  and  measures,  as  the  only  possible  means,  by  which 
commerce  can  be  regulated  between  foreign  nations  and 
among  the  several  States. 

The  people  look  to  you  and  your  associates  to  protect  their 
interests,  and  I  trust  you  will  pardon  me  for  thus  impress- 
ing upon  you  the  importance  of  legislating  upon  the  ques- 
tions here  referred  to,  in  such  a  way  as  to  provide  for  the 


COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  183 

prosperity  of  the  masses,  and  not  solely  for  the  benefit  of  a 
few,  who  have  secured  special  charters  and  privileges  fo 
their  own  benefit. 

Very  respectfully  yours, 

PETER  COOPER. 


OPEN  LETTER  TO  THE  CITIZENS  AND  VOTERS  OF  MAINE. 

HAVING  been  requested  by  citizens  of  your  State,  to  ad- 
dress a  few  words  of  counsel  and  appeal,  on  the  present 
condition  of  this  nation,  involved  in  the  political  issues,  that 
are  now  before  your  people  as  a  State,  I  take  this  means  to 
do  so,  in  the  hope,  that  it  may  have  some  effect  in  inducing 
them  to  listen,  for  once,  to  other  than  their  party  leaders, 
to  reflect  on  their  condition  for  themselves,  and  to  take  the 
counsel  of  an  old  man,  in  his  eighty-eighth  year,  who  has 
no  other  ambition  or  object  in  life,  than  the  good  of  his 
country  and  the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  the  whole 
people. 

The  commercial  ruin  of  so  large  a  part  of  the  business 
and  productive  power  of  our  country,  and  the  consequent 
distress  of  the  honest  laboring  portion  of  our  people  is  the 
overwhelming  fact,  which  we  all  acknowledge  and  deplore. 

The  causes  of  this  distressful  state  of  things,  given  by  one 
party,  is  the  extravagance  of  the  people,  over-production, 
over-importations  and  the  unwillingness  of  the  working 
people  to  work  for  low  wages. 

It  has  never  been  proved  yet,  how  these  causes  could  pro- 
duce this  wide-spread  distress  in  our  country,  in  the  presence 
of  the  facts :  First,  that  extravagance,  from  its  very  nature, 
must  be  confined  to  a  few,  who  can  afford  it ;  and  that  over- 
production and  over-importation  can  only  be  the  conse- 
quence of  inability  to  pay  for  consumption  ;  for  no  amount 
of  production  and  importation  could  distress  the  people,  if 
th%y  could  pay  for  and  consume  all.  How  came  about  this 
inability  to  pay  ? 


184  COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

Now,  we  of  the  National  Party  maintain,  that  a  differ- 
ent cause  is  the  source  of  the  distress  and  misery  of  our 
people. 

IT  is  MISGOVERNMENT.  It  is  precisely  that  form  of  misgov- 
ernment,  which  has  always  brought  distress  and  oppression 
on  any  people — legislating  for  a  class,  and  putting  the  prop- 
erty, the  interest  and  the  power  for  good  or  evil  that  exists 
in  public  law,  entirely  into  the  control  of  a  particular  class, 
as  distinguished  from  the  rest  of  the  people. 

But  what  particular  policy  of  the  Government  and  what 
acts  of  legislation  can  be  cited  as  " misgovernmtnt"  and  as 
having  brought  all  this  distress  upon  us  \ 

It  is  the  policy  of  legislating,  for  the  last  twelve  years,  in 
the  interest  of  the  bondholders  of  this  nation's  debt,  and  the 
several  "  funding  Acts  of  Congress,"  that^have  carried  out 
that  policy. 

I  cannot  go  into  a  detail  of  those  "  Acts."  Let  any  one 
examine  them,  and  he  will  see  but  one  purpose  in  them  all ; 
it  was  to  degrade  the  value  and  shrink  the  volume  of  the 
people's  legal  tender,  raise  the  value,  and  keep  up  the  mono- 
poly of  gold  and  silver,  and  especially  of  gold — as  a  class 
money. 

This  is  the  whole  secret  /  and  as  a  consequence,  our  legal 
tender,  till  very  lately,  was  kept  below  par  to  specie,  by  de- 
nying it  the  power  of  a  full  legal  tender ;  and  the  process 
of  funding  has  been  going  on,  until  all  the  Government 
money,  introduced  into  the  circulation  and  business  of  the 
country,  and  to  which  "  the  whole  business  of  the  country 
was  conformed,"  was  shrunk  from  a  volume  exceeding  2,000 
millions  to  the  present  volume  of  greenbacks,  about  350 
millions. 

Eemember,  every  dollar  of  the  funded  debt  now  in  exist- 
ence, was  at  one  time,  in  the  shape  of  "legal  tender"— not 
greenbacks,  only  four  hundred  and  twenty  millions  were 
greenbacks — but  legal  tender,  and  designed,  made  for,  and 
introduced  into  the  circulation  of  this  country  in  paymtnt 
of  labor  and  property,  received  and  used  by  the  Govern- 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.          185 

ment ;  and  the  whole  business  of  the  country,  as  John  Sher- 
man said,  from  his  seat  in  the  Senate,  "  was  conformed  to 
the  legal  tender  act" 

It  is  this  policy  and  legislation,  that  has  brought  ruin  upon 
the  business  and  laboring  portion  of  our  community.  ^ 

If  these  are  facts — and  they  are  undoubted  facts  of  public 
record — they  are  ample  to  account  for  the  present  state  of 
affairs. 

Hence,  it  is  the  design  of  the  National  Party,  as  Senator 
Jones  says,  "  to  undo  the  unwitting  and  blundering  work  of 
1873,  and  to  render  our  legislation  on  the  subject  of  money 
conformable  to  the  Constitution  of  our  country. 

We  cannot,  we  dare  not  avoid  speedy  action  on  the  sub- 
ject. Not  only  does  reason,  justice,  and  authority  unite  in 
urging  us  to  retrace  our  steps,  but  the  organic  law  com- 
mands us  to  do  so ;  and  the  presence  of  peril  enjoins  what 
the  law  commands." 

The  American  people  have  come  to  know,  that  our  coun- 
try has  been  subjected  to  a  cruel  financial  policy — a  policy, 
that  has  (as  I  have  said)  converted  the  people's  money, 
which  was  actually  found  circulating  as  a  national  cur- 
rency, at  the  close  of  the  war,  and  which  should  have  been 
permitted  to  remain,  in  some  form  as  legal  tender,  into  a 
National  debt,  paying  interest  in  gold. 

Knowing  this,  we  mean  to  undo  this  policy,  rescind  those 
"  Acts  of  funding"  and  pay  the  National  debt ;  we  mean 
to  do  this  according  to  the  provisions  of  law,  with  justice 
towards  the  bondholders,  and  with  justice  towards  the  people 
of  this  country — we  mean  to  do  this,  at  the  earliest  oppor- 
tunity, consistent  with  all  just  and  legal  engagements  to  the 
bondholders. 

I  do  not  mean  to  accuse  our  political  opponents  on  this 
great  national  question,  either  of  insincerity,  want  of  patri- 
otism, or  any  determination  to  distress  the  people,  to  gratify 
their  own  ambition  or  lust  of  gain ;  though  I  cannot  except 
all,  from  this  class  ;  but  I  do  think  both  our  rulers  and  the 
people  need  more  light  on  this  subject. 


186  COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

'  My  long  life  has  made  me  know,  that  sincerity  is  not  al- 
ways the  evidence  of  correct  principles. 

I  have  learned,  that  even  so  great  and  so  good  a  man  as 
St.  Paul — even  he  once — verily  believed,  that  he  was  doing 
God  service  by  hauling  men,  women  and  children  to  prison 
and  to  death. 

The  number  of  deaths,  occasioned  by  the  mistaken  zeal 
of  St.  Paul  were  insignificant,  when  compared  with  the 
thousands,  that  have  died  and  are  dying  of  starvation  in  this 
country,  and  the  many,  who  have  taken  their  own  lives  to 
get  relief  from  their  present  suffering  condition. 

In  conclusion,  this  policy  of  funding  the  people's  money, 
under  the  notion,  that  it  is  a  mere  debt  to  capitalists,  so  as 
to  deprive  the  people  of  the  use  of  their  money,  after  hav- 
ing conformed  their  business  to  its  use,  must  be  reversed. 
It  is  the  "  credit  of  a  great  country  cut  up  into  small  pieces" 
as  Secretary  Chase  termed  it,  "  and  circulated  as  money" 

The  people  prefer  this  form  of,  their  credit ;  "  redeem- 
ing "  it  constantly,  as  it  passes  from  hand  to  hand,  as  money 
or  legal  tender ;  and  made  receivable  or  "  redeemable  "  for 
all  taxes  and  dues  to  the  Government.  We  can  keep  this 
money  on  a  par  with  coin,  by  simply  giving  it  the  same 
function  as  coin — a  perfect  legal  tender;  and  keeping  the 
nation  out  of  debt  to  foreigners,  and  especially  to  BOND- 
HOLDERS, paid  in  gold. 

This  may  not  please  a  certain  class,  who  hold  the  chief 
control  of  the  coin  of  the  world  ;  and  who  desire  the  high- 
est interest  for  money,  made  from  the  sacrifices  and  toil  of 
the  million  ;  but  it  is  for  the  interest  of  the  working  masses, 
who  will  then  have  the  chance  to  receive  the  wages,  due  to 
their  labor. 

It  is  the  last  and  most  fervent  hope  of  my  old  age,  that 
these  truths  will  be  recognized  by  the  people,  in  time  to 
save  themselves  from  the  ruin  arid  distress,  which  has  al- 
ready fallen  on  so  many ;  and  finally  introduce  the  only 
policy  in  the  financial  affairs  of  this  people,  that  can  secure 
the  permanent  prosperity  of  the  country. 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  187 

This  policy  may  be  thus  briefly  expressed :  First,  let  all 
that  passes  as  money  in  this  country  be  the  legal  tenderof 
the  United  States,  and  receivable  equally  with  coin,  for  all 
the  taxes  and  dues  of  Government — not  subject  to  be  fund- 
ed ;  and  let  it  be  limited  in_volurne  to  the  present  funded 
debt  of  the  United  States.  This  sum,  by  a  constitutional 
provision,  shall  not  be  increased,  except  by  a  fixed  regulation, 
keeping  it,  per  capita,  according  to  the  increase  of  the  popu- 
lation, in  time  of  peace ;  and  in  time  of  war,  changed  only 
by  a  vote  of  two-thirds  of  the  States,  as  other  provisions  of 
the  Constitution  require. 

GOOD  GOVERNMENT. — APPEAL  TO  ALL  LEGISLATORS,  EDITORS, 
RELIGIOUS  TEACHERS,  AND  LOVERS  OF  OUR  COUNTRY. 

The  experience  of  a  long  life  has  compelled  me  to  believe, 
that  the  Constitution  has  made  it  the  imperative  duty  of 
Congress  to  take  and  hold  the  entire  control  of  all,  that 
should  ever  have  been  allowed  or  used  as  money  for  the  na- 
tion's trade  and  commerce.  All  atricles  are  measured  and 
weighed  in  reference  to  the  amount  of  money,  that  would 
be  a  just  equivalent  in  all  the  varied  exchanges,  where  one 
form  of  labor  and  property  is  given  for  others. 

The  failure  on  the  part  of  the  general  Government  to 
obey  the  first  mandate  of  a  Constitution,  that  vests  the 
power  of  coining  money  and  regulating  the  value  thereof  in 
the  United  States,  without  directing  whether  it  should  be 
coined  from  gold,  silver,  copper,  nickel,  or  paper. 

The  regulation  of  the  value  of  money  can  only  be  accom- 
plished by  a  law  of  Congress,  that  will  declare  the  exact 
amount,  which  may  be  legally  collected  for  the  use  of,  or  in- 
terest on,  money. 

According  to  Spaulding's  "  Financial  History  of  the  War" 
(p.  201),  the  public  debt  of  the  United  States  stood  on  the 
books  of  the  Treasury,  October  1,  1865,  at  a  total  of 
$2,803,549,437.  According  to  the  same  author,  who  is  a 
strong  advocate  for  specie  payments  (page  10,  Introduction), 


188  COIN   AND   PAPER   CUEKENCY. 

out  of  this  debt,  in  1864,  "  the  inflating*  paper  issues,  out- 
standing, were  over,  $1,100,000,000," —  and  gold  reached 
its  highest  quotation,  2.85. 

Now,  be  it  remembered,  that  although  a  few  money-chang- 
ers, speculators  and  importers  were  willing  to  give  $2.85  of 
paper  for  one  dollar  in  gold,  yet  the  people  were  using  this 
paper  to  buy  flour  and  exchange  their  commodities  at  prices, 
that  were  far  less  than  this  inflated  price  of  gold. 

Gold  was  no  longer  the  standard  of  exchange,  except  in 
foreign  commodities,  where  "  balances "  had  to  be  paid  in 
gold.  The  internal  trade,  commerce,  and  industries  of  the 
country  were  steadily  increasing,  and  never  before  so  flourish- 
ing as  during  the  time  of  this  famine  for  gold.  In  an  evil 
hour  it  became  the  policy  of  this  Government  to  reduce  all  our 
paper  currency  to  the  standard  and  par  value  of  gold.  This 
was  attempted  by  the  withdrawal  of  the  paper  currency  as 
fast  as  practicable,  and  by  absorbing  the  same,  by  an  arbitrary 
law,  into  a  debt  for  so  much  gold  as  the  face  of  the  paper, 
in  the  shape  of  gold  bonds,  bearing  the  yearly  interest  of  six 
per  cent,  in  gold  !  In  the  course  of  less  than  eight  years  this 
change  was  effected,  and  the  people's  money  and  currency 
of  all  kinds  were  reduced  subsequently  from  $2,192,395,527, 
as  represented  on  the  Treasurer's  book  on  September  1, 
1865,  to  the  sum  of  $631,488,676,  on  the  1st  of  November, 

1873,  making  a  reduction  of  the  currency  in  eight  years  of 
$1,561,906,851!      (See    Congressional  Record,    March   31, 

1874,  speech  of  John   M.    Bright,    of   Tennessee.)      This 
brought  on  the  panic  of  1873  and  all  our  present  financial 
troubles.     Although  a  part  of  this  vast  sum  was  a  kind  of 
currency,  that  drew  interest,  and,  therefore,  partook  also  of 
the  nature  of  an  investment,  yet  as  Mr.  Maynard,  Chairman 
of  the  Committee  on  Banking  and  Currency,  said,  from  his 
seat  in  Congress,  on  occasion  of  Mr.  Bright's  speech,  "  those 
issues  were  engraved  and  prepared  in  a  form  to  circulate  as 
money,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,   did  so  circulate,"  until 
either  they  were  funded   or  "  the  interest  accumulated  so 
as  to  make  them  superior  to  the  ordinary  class  of  currency." 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUKKENCY.  189 

But  this  stupendous  decrease  in  the  people's  money — the 
very  tools  of  their  trades  and  enterpises  of  every  description, 
the  use  of  which  they  had  fairly  earned  by  the  blood  and 
sacrifices  of  a  great  war,  and  the  beneficial  effects  of  which 
were  proved  by  the  great  activity  in  business  and  trade,  which 
it  engendered  as  long  as  it  lasted — this  great  reduction  in  the 
money  of  the  people  was  made  by  methods  equally  unjust, 
as  they  were  disastrous  to  the  prosperity  of  the  country. 
This  paper  currency  was  absorbed  by  interest-bearing  gold 
bonds,  bought  by  the  paper,  which  in  its  turn  had  been  pur- 
chased by  gold  at  40,  50,  and  60  per  cent,  discount ;  thus 
turning  the  debt  of  the  country  to  one  of  twice  its  value  in 
paper,  and  paying  for  the  gold  bonds  at  half  their  value  in 
paper.  This  was  done  at  a  time,  when  this  paper  currency 
was  doing  the  nation  all  the  good,  that  so  much  gold  could 
do  for  our  domestic  prosperity  and  trade.  The  people  were 
building  up  the  country  with  a  rapidity  unexampled  before, 
with  this  paper,  which,  if  it  had  been  fully  honored  by  the 
Government  that  issued  it,  and  received  for  all  imports, 
duties  and  debts,  and  allowed  to  be  exchanged  at  par  for 
bonds  at  an  equitable  rate  of  interest,  would  not  have  per- 
mitted any  premium  of  gold. 

A  HAPPY   INCIDENT  FOE   AMERICA. 

In  1879,  a  fortunate  incident  for  America  happened :  the 
crops  failed  all  over  Europe,  which  forced  the  people  to  look 
to  the  United  States  for  supplies.  This  brought  millions  of 
gold,  that  seemed  like  a  special  Providence ;  for  without  it 
our  unwise  specie  resumption  would  have  brought  ruin  all 
over  the  country  ;  because  our  real  estate  and  other  commo- 
dities would  have  been  at  the  mercy  of  foreign  and  domes- 
tic gold-mongers,  in  whose  favor  Congress  has  been  legislating 
since  1862. 

Now  (1880)  Europe  has  average  crops,  and  we  cannot 
expect  the  millions  of  gold  we  had  last  year.  Let  us  hope 
the  specie  resumption  will  prosper  without  European  gold, 


190  COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

that  relieved  the  pressure,  in  1879.  Such  an  unfortunate 
incident  for  Europe,  and  fortunate  for  America,  it  is  to  be 
desired,  will  not  soon  occur.  What  then  will  prevent  gold 
speculation,  pressure  and  ruin?  Congress  should  at  the 
earliest  opportunity  create  a  currency,  based  on  the  property 
of  the  nation,  reserving  gold  merely  for  foreign  exchanges, 
so  that  speculators  could  not  interfere  with  it.  The  people 
are  now  used  to,  and  prefer  a  national  paper  currency  from 
a  ten  cent,  to  a  one  hundred  dollar,  bill ;  there  is  no  reason 
why  they  should  not  have  it ;  being  their  only  salvation 
from  knavishly  contrived  periodic  gold  pancis  by  holders  of 
gold  in  our  own  and  foreign  countries. 

As  a  further  evidence  of  the  danger,  that  must  result  to 
the  American  people  by  our  present  system  of  National 
Banks,  authorized  as  they  are  to  issue  paper  money,  "prom- 
ising" to  pay  gold  and  silver  on  demand,  it  should  be  re- 
membered, that  no  ten  years  have  passed  in  the  history  of 
our  country  without  a  failure  of  our  banks  to  pay  coin. 
This  danger  was  made  to  appear  in  all  its  frightful  propor- 
tions by  the  testimony  of  Mr.  S.  B.  Chittenden,  Member  of 
Congress  from  Brooklyn,  given  before  a  Congressional  Com- 
mittee in  1874,  appointed  to  inquire  into  the  National  Bank- 
ing System. 

s.  B.  CHITTENDEN'S  TESTIMONY  CONCERNING  THE  NATIONAL 

BANKS. 

"  I  believe  that,  of  1,000  National  Banks,  there  are  not 
two-thirds  in  number  sound  to-day — I  mean,  two-thirds  in 
number.  In  the  vast  proportion  of  them  the  capital  is  very 
small. 

I  know,  for  instance,  how  one  National  Bank  was  estab- 
lished, and  I  presume  there  were  hundreds  established  in 
the  same  way. 

I  say  I  know  a  National  Bank  of  $100,000  capital  (so 
represented),  where  a  broker  in  New  York  purchased  $100,- 
000  in  Government  bonds  and  paid  for  them. 

The  owners  or  organizers  of  the  bank  furnished  the  mar- 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  191 

gin  between  the  ninety  per  cent,  in  currency,  which  they 
were  allowed  to  draw  on  deposit  bonds,  and  the  cost  of  the 
bonds,  and  that  margin  was  all  the  capital  that  was  ever  put 
into  the  lank.  [And  that  $100,000  didn't  go  to  the  bank- 
it  went  to  pay  for  the  bonds.] 

The  broker  sent  the  bonds  to  Washington  to  get  his  $90,- 
000,  or  ninety  per  cent,  on  the  dollar  in  national  bank  notes, 
already  having  the  margin  from  the  gentleman,  who  estab- 
lished the  bank,  while  he  reimbursed  himself -with  the  $90,- 
000  in  national  bank  notes  drawn  on  the  bonds. 

The  bank  was  one  of  the  first  to  suspend  in  the  crisis  of 
1873,  but  resumed  again  shortly,  and  is  going  on  as  before. 
It  has  a  banking  house  which  cost  over  thirty  thousand  dol- 
lars? 

There  you  have  the  facts  in  a  nut-shell ;  and  Mr.  Chit- 
tenden  never  having  manifested  the  first  symptoms  of  Green- 
backism,  but  being  a  well-known  bitter  opponent  of  the 
"  people's  money,"  his  testimony  should  be  accepted  as  con- 
clusive. 

It  will  be  noticed  particularly,  that  there  was  "  not  a  dol- 
lar in  the  bank  "  of  which  Mr.  Chittenden  testifies — and 
that  "  in  a  vast  proportion  of  the  banks  the  capital  is  very 
small? 

It  would  be  safe  to  "  strike  an  average,"  and  place  the 
bank  capital  at  ten  per  cent.  "  cash,"  and  ninety  per  cent. 
"  confidence." 

The  testimony  of  Mr.  Chittenden  will  show,  that  our  pre- 
sent system  of  National  Banks  is  a  moneyed  power,  that  is 
more  able  to  inflict  on  the  American  people  the  greatest 
possible  amount  of  suffering,  like  that  which  is  now  passing 
the  real  estate  of  our  country  rapidly  out  of  the  hands  of 
the  many  into  the  possession  of  the  few. 

SENATOR   JONES    ON    HASTY    LEGISLATION. 

I  do  heartily  agree  with  Senator  Jones,  when  he  says  that 
"the  present  is  the  acceptable  time  to  undo  the  unwitting 


192  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

and  blundering  work  of  1873  ;  and  to  render  our  legislation, 
on  the  subject  of  money,  consistent  with  the  facts,  concern- 
ing the  stock  and  supply  of  the  precious  metals  throughout 
the  world,  and  conformable  to  the  Constitution  of  our 
country." 

I  sincerely  hope,  that  the  concluding  advice  of  Senator 
Jones  will  make  a  living  and  lasting  impression,  when  he 
says,  speaking  to  the  Senate,  "We  cannot,  we  dare  not, 
avoid  speedy  action  on  the  subject.  Not  only  does  reason, 
justice,  and  authority  unite  in  urging  us  to  retrace  our  steps, 
but  the  organic  law  commands  us  to  do  so ;  and  the  presence 
of  peril  enjoins  what  the  law  commands." 

The  Senator  states  a  most  important  fact,  and  one  that 
all  know  to  be  true,  "  that  by  interfering  with  the  standards 
of  the  country,  Congress  has  led  the  country  away  from  the 
realms  of  prosperity,  and  thrust  it  beyond  the  bounds  of 
safety."  He  says,  truly,  "  to  refuse  to  replace  it  upon  its 
former  vantage  ground  would  be  to  incur  a  responsibility 
and  a  deserved  reproach,  greater  than  that,  which  men  have 
ever  before  felt  themselves  able  to  bear." 

Why  the  Senator's  patriotic  advice  was  not  taken,  those 
who  listened  to,  and  neglected  it,  best  know. 

SIR   A.    ALISON   ON   OUR   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

It  is  worth  while  to  observe,  that  Sir  A.  Alison,  who 
speaks  so  wisely  on  this  subject  in  reference  to  the  history 
of  his  own  country,  while  scanning  a  few  years  ago  the  pros- 
perity of  our  country  during  the  war  of  the  Eebellion  and 
immediately  after,  has  a  foreboding  of  what  might  happen, 
and  remarks : 

"The  American  Government  may  make  financial  and 
legislative  mistakes,  which  may  check  the  progress  of  the 
nation  and  counteract  the  advantages,  which  paper  money 
has  already  bestowed  upon  them  ;  they  may  adopt  the  un- 
wise and  unjust  system,  which  England  adopted  at  the  close 
of  the  French  war ;  they  may  resolve  to  pay  in  gold,  and 


COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY.  193 

with  low  prices,  the  debt  contracted  with  paper,  and  with 
high  prices.  But  whatever  they  may  do,"  he  adds,  "  nothing 
can  shake  the  evidence,  which  the  experience  of  that  nation 
during  the  last  six  years  affords  of  the  power  of  paper 
money  to  promote  a  nation's  welfare." 

Conversation  at  my  house  with  Hon.  S.  B.  Chittenden, 
Chairman  of  Committee  on  Currency : 

Mr.  Chittenden  said,  that  he  came  expressly  to  get  me  to 
join  with  him  in  a  suit  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  to  get  a  decision  against  the  legality  of.  the 
greenbacks.  He  occupied  nearly  half  an  hour  in  presenting 
his  side  of  the  case,  to  which  I  had  given  close  attention. 
Soon  after  I  had  commenced  to  show  the  impolicy  and  the 
impropriety  of  such  a  course,  he  became  impatient  and  wanted 
to  go.  I  requested  him  to  hear  me  as  patiently  as  I  had  lis- 
tened to  him.  Mr.  Chittenden  said  his  mind  was  made  up ; 
he  was  going  to  the  Supreme  Court  to  get  a  decision. 

I  urged  him  to  give  me  twenty  minutes,  as  I  felt  very 
sure,  that  I  could  convince  him  and  show,  that  there  is 
nothing  to  go  to  the  Supreme  Court  for. 

He  then  said :  "  I  will  acknowledge,  that  you  have  sown  the 
seed,  which  has  sprouted  and  taken  root,  and  the  people  will 
have  the  greenbacks  sooner  or  later,  unless  a  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  can  be  obtained,  pronouncing  them  illegal." 

PETEK  COOPER. 


"  Let  Congress  make  our  greenbacks  f  undable  at  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  holder,  in  bonds  of  $100,  $1,000  and  $10,000, 
drawing  interest  at  the  rate  of  one  cent  a  day  on  each  $100 
(or  $3.65  per  annum),  and  exchangeable  into  greenbacks  at 
the  pleasure  of  the  holder. 

"  Now  authorize  the  Treasurer  to  purchase  and  extinguish 

our  outstanding  bonds,  so  fast  as  it  is  supplied  with  the 

means  of  so  doing  by  receipts  for  customs  or  otherwise,  and 

to  issue  new  greenbacks  whenever  large  amounts  shall  be 

13 


194  COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY. 

required,  every  one  being  fundable  in  sums  of  $100,  $1,000, 
$10,000,  as  aforesaid,  at  the  pleasure  of  the  holder,  in  bonds 
drawing  an  annual  interest  of  $3.65  in  coin  per  annum,  and 
these  bonds  exchangeable  into  greenbacks  whenever  a  holder 
shall  desire  it. 

Our  greenbacks  which  are  now  virtual  falsehoods,  would 
be  truths.  The  Government  would  pay  them  on  demand  in 
bonds  as  aforesaid,  which  is  in  substantial  accordance  with 
the  plan,  on  which  the  greenbacks  were  first  authorized." 

WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

"  No  observer  can  fail  to  see,  in  the  measures,  which  the 
banks  forced  the  Treasury  to  submit  to,  or  deluded  it  into 
adopting  two  distinct  intentions.  During  the  war,  every 
effort  was  made  and  every  trick  used  to  artificially  and  un- 
necessarily depress  the  national  credits,  so  that  capitalists 
could  buy  its  bonds  at  the  very  lowest  price.  As  soon  as 
the  war  stopped,  every  expedient  was  resorted  to  by  capi- 
talists to  artificially  and  unnaturally  raise  its  credit  and  in- 
crease the  burden  of  the  debt,  which  they  had  bought  at  less 
than  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar. 

For  instance,  the  original  treasury  note  was  receivable 
for  duties  and  imports,  and  could  be  exchanged  for  a  5.20 
bond.  The  money  changers  forced  the  Government  to  re- 
peal these  two  provisions,  making  the  greenback  not  receiv- 
able for  duties  or  the  bond.  The  capitalists  then  forced  the 
Government  to  create  two  methods  of  payment,  one  to  its 
common  creditors,  contractors,  soldiers,  laborers,  etc.,  in 
greenbacks ;  a  second  to  bondholders,  whose  interest  was  to 
be  paid  in  coin.  These  changes  probably  cost  the  nation  a 
thousand  million  dollars,  and  put  the  amounts  into  the 
pockets  of  bondholders  during  the  war. 

After  the  war,  or  just  at  its  close,  the  bonds  were  relieved 
of  taxation,  and  in  1869,  made  payable  in  coin.  It  is  far 
withm  the  truth  to  say  that  these  two  measures  unjustly  and 
unnecessarily  increased  the  burden  of  the  people's  debt,  by 


COIN   AND   PAPEK  CURKENCY.  195 

another  $1,000,000,000.  Then,  in  1865,  began  the  policy 
of  contraction ;  and  in  1873,  silver  was  demonetized — two 
measures,  which  have  cost  the  nation  at  least  double  what  the 
war  cost,  probably  $10,000,000,000,  by  the  bankruptcy  they 
have  created. 

This,  briefly,  is  the  history  of  the  Republican  party's 
financial  management  during  the  last  eighteen  years,"  etc. 

The  pretentious  of  those,  who  are  attempting  to  drive 
this  country  back  to  the  barbarism  of  a  metallic  basis  for 
our  currency,  are  fast  giving  away  for  want  of  argument. 
It  is  being  discovered,  that  all  the  great  writers,  who  have 
analyzed  the  subject  and  viewed  it  from  a  scientific  stand- 
point, came  to  the  conclusion,  that  paper  is  superior  to  metal 
for  a  currency,  etc.  .  .  . 

*  That  a  system  of  bills  of  credit,  made  a  general  legal 
tender,  is  practicable,  is  proved  by  the  fact,  that  the  French 
Government  has  made  and  maintained  a  legal  tender  paper 
circulation  through  one  of  the  fiercest  and,  to  them,  the 
most  disastrous  wars  of  modern  times ;  and,  having  paid  a 
thousand  millions  of  indemnity,  their  paper  money  is  to-day 
nearly  on  a  par  with  gold.    This  is  because  the  Government 
took  its  own  paper  for  all  dues,  instead  of  discrediting  it,  by 
not  taking  it,  as  ours  does.     They  take  their  paper  also  for 
French  Government  bonds,  which  has  resulted  in  the  public 
debt  being  mainly  due  to  their  own  citizens,  instead  of  for- 
eigners, as  ours  is  to-day,  thus  becoming  a  perpetual  tax  on 
the  resources  of  the  country. 

EXPANSION  VerSUS  CONTRACTION. 

The  following  statistics  from  the  London  Economist  dem- 
onstrate the  fact,  that  the  expansion  of  French  Government 
legal  tenders  has  kept  pace  with  the  accumulation  of  specie, 
and  materially  develops  the  home  industries  of  that  country : 

<:Of  legal  tenders  in  April,  1869,  the  circulation  was  214 

*  From  my  address  to  the  Union  League  Club,  published  in  the  New 
York  Tribune,  March  9,  1877. 


196  COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY. 

million  dollars,  and  in  April,  1876,  494  millions,  being  an 
increase  in  seven  years  of  280  millions,  or  130  per  cent. 

Of  specie  and  bullion  in  December,  1869,  the  stock  was 
247  million  dollars,  and  in  November,  1876,  432  millions, 
or  an  increase  in  seven  years  of  185  millions,  or  75  per  cent." 

In  1792,  the  kings,  by  divine  right,  thought  they  must 
league  against  France  and  restore  a  Icing  by  divine  right ; 
but  they  learned  a  lesson,  that  taught  them  to  let  France 
manage  her  own  internal  affairs,  in  1876. 

JOHN  EARL  WILLIAMS  ON  THE  DUTY  OF  CONGRESS: 

To  the  above  we  append  the  following  suggestions  from 
John  Earl  Williams,  President  of  the  Metropolitan  Bank  of 
this  city : 

"  I  would  suggest :  That  Congress  assume,  at  once,  the 
inherent  sovereign  prerogative  of  a  Government  '  of  the 
people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people,'  and  exercise  it  by 
furnishing  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States  with  a 
uniform  national  currency  !  Surely  the  people,  and  the 
people  only,  have  a  natural  right  to  all  the  advantages, 
emolument,  or  income,  that  may  inure  from  the  issue  of 
either  $1,000  bonds  with  interest,  or  $10  notes  without, 
based  on  the  faith  and  credit  of  the  nation. 

This  principle,  simple,  clear  and  undeniable  ought  to  be 
recognized  as  fundamental,  and  the  only  safe  and  proper 
basis,  on  which  may  securely  rest  all  the  circulating  medium 
of  the  country,  for  the  sole  benefit  of  all  the  people,  and 
not,  as  now,  for  the  profit  of  a  class  of  stockholders,  how- 
ever deserving  they  may  be  in  all  other  respects. 

To  carry  into  effect  this  principle — to  substitute  United 
States  notes  for  bank-notes — take  away,  as  soon  as  practi- 
cable, and  for  ever,  all  circulation  from  banks. 

They  would  do  a  strictly  legitimate  business  as  banks,  of 
discount  and  deposit ;  knowing  that  whatever  leads  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  whole  people  must  be  beneficial  to  the 
banks  ;  but  leaving  the  right  where  it  belongs,  to  the  United 


COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  197 

States  Government,  to  supply  the  whole  circulating  medium 
of  the  country. 

In  this  connection  we  must  remember,  that  banks  are  the 
creatures  of  law.  The  laws,  which  created  them  may,  by 
virtue  of  rights  reserved,  be  amended,  altered  or  repealed. 

To  those,  who  are  disposed  to  complain  of  the  change  as 
a  hardship,  one  is  tempted  to  ask,  what  natural  right  a  dozen 
stockholders  have  to  receive  notes  from  Government  to  cir- 
culate, that  any  other  dozen  men  do  not  possess  ?" 

As  this  gentleman  was  an  eminent  banker,  his  opinion 
must  have  weight.  One  thing  is  certain,  that  the  national 
debt  can  never  be  paid  by  a  Governmental  policy,  that 
shrinks  the  currency,  destroys  values,  paralyzes  industry, 
enforces  idleness  and  brings  wretchedness  and  ruin  to  the 
homes  of  millions  of  the  American  people.  It  is  equally 
true,  that  Americans  can  never  buy  anything  cheap  from 
foreign  countries,  that  must  be  bought  at  the  expense  of 
leaving  our  own  good  raw  materials  unused,  and  our  own 
labor  unemployed.  It  should  be  remembered,  that  neither 
gold,  silver,  copper,  nickel  or  paper  are  money  without  the 
stamp  of  the  Government  upon  it.  The  Constitution  has 
made  it  the  duty  of  Congress  to  coin  the  money  of  our 
country,  regulate  the  value  thereof  and  fix  a  standard  of 
weights  and  measures,  as  the  only  possible  means,  by  which 
commerce  can  be  regulated  between  foreign  nations  and 
among  the  several  States. 

Seventeen  years  ago,  I  held  it  to  be  unsafe  for  the  public 
welfare,  as  I  now  do,  to  allow  banks  to  incur  liabilities,  pay- 
able in  specie,  on  demand,  by  issues  of  paper  and  loans 
many  times  the  amount  of  the  specie  they  held  in  their 
vaults,  or  could  obtain  from  any  source,  for  the  immediate 
payment  of  their  notes  in  gold,  on  demand.  This  demand 
was  made  with  all  the  accompanying  disasters  of  wide- 
spread ruin  and  interruption  of  credit  and  industry,  in  times 
called  "  panics."  The  effect  of  the  panic  of  1857,  and  the 
causes  are  very  clearly  detailed  in  Mr.  Cald well's  work  on 
"  Ways  and  Means  of  Payment ;  "  p.  485,  etc.  .  .  . 


198  COIN  AND  PAPER   CURRENCY. 

It  is  of  the  greatest  importance,  that  all  the  paper  money, 
allowed  by  the  Government,  should  be  made  as  unyielding 
in  its  power  to  pay  debts  as  the  yard-stick  or  the  pound 
weight. 

Our  Government,  having  been  literally  compelled  to  issue 
and  use  a  legal-tender  paper  money,  in  order  to  save  the 
nation's  life,  has,  by  its  use,  caused  the  whole  property  of 
the  country  to  be  measured  by  its  purchasing  power.  By 
this  use  of  paper  money  the  Government  has  created  a  most 
solemn  obligation  on  its  part  to  do  no  act  to  increase  or  di- 
minish the  amount  of  paper  money  beyond  the  absolute 
necessities  of  the  Government.  As  an  increase  of  the 
amount  would  innate  prices,  without  increasing  real  values, 
in  the  same  proportion  a  diminution  of  currency  must  cause 
all  property  to  shrink  in  price,  and  thereby  put  it  out  of  the 
power  of  the  people  to  pay  the  national  debt. 

I  do  not  believe  in  the  good  policy  of  selling  Government 
bonds,  as  a  means  of  resuming  specie  payments,  as  it  will 
soon  be  drained  from  us  again,  leaving  our  paper  as  it  was 
before,  irredeemable  in  gold ;  nor  in  the  purchase  of  silver 
to  take  the  place  of  the  best  small  currency  our  country  has 
ever  possessed.  It  was  a  currency,  that  served  the  country 
without  interest ;  and  gave  back  to  the  whole  people  what- 
ever was  lost  or  worn  out  in  the  public  service.  But  let  the  cur- 
rency at  all  times  be  interconvertible  with  interest-bearing 
bonds,  and  let  the  Government,  not  only  make  its  money  a 
legal  tender,  but  receive  it  for  all  dues,  and  we  shall  hear  no 
more  either  of  "  inflation  "  or  of  "  depreciation."  This  is 
my  doctrine  "  in  a  nut-shell."  I  believe  with  Jefferson,  and 
many  of  our  wisest  statesmen,  that  our  general  Government 
is  as  much  bound  by  the  Constitution  to  hold  the  entire  con- 
trol of  all,  that  is  allowed  as  a  legal  money  measure,  in  the 
regulation  of  trade  and  commerce,  as  they  are  bound  to  fix 
a  standard  for  the  pound  weight  or  the  bushel  measure  ; 
and  that  this  measure  of  value  should  be  made  as  unfailing 
and  unalterable  as  possible. 


COIN  AND  PAPEK  CURRENCY.    '  199 

WEBSTER  tells  us : 

"  When  all  our  paper  money  is  made  payable  in  specie  on 
demand,  it  will  prove  the  most  certain  means,  that  can  be 
used  to  fertilize  the  rich  man's  field  by  the  sweat  of  the  poor 
man's  brow." 

It  will  do  this  by  ensuring  the  periodical  return  of  those 
scenes  of  panic,  pressure,  general  bankruptcy  and  ruin,  that 
have  so  often  changed  the  values  of  all  property  arid  labor, 
some  twenty-five  or  fifty  per  cent,  in  a  single  year,  whenever 
it  was  for  the  interest  of  foreign  creditors  or  merchants  at  home 
to  withdraw  a  few  extra  millions  from  our  banks,  as  they 
did  in  '57,  when  a  withdrawal  of  only  seven  millions  pro- 
duced the  panic  of  that  year,  which  sunk  the  values  of  all 
the  property  of  our  country  to  the  amount  of  thousands  of 
millions  of  dollars.  These  millions  were  taken  from  the 
farmers,  mechanics  and  merchants,  who  were  in  debt,  and 
put 'in  the  possession  of  those,  who  had  the  means  to  buy  at 
the  ruinous  rates,  at  which  property  of  all  kinds  was  com- 
pelled to  be  sold,  thus  making,  as  it  ever  must,  the  rich 
richer,  and  the  poor  poorer. 

There  can  be  no  security  for  any  man,  that  is  in  debt,  until 
our  general  Government  shall  perform  its  most  important 
duty,  which  is  not  only  to  establish  a  just  system  of  money, 
but  a  system  of  legal  tender  paper,  in  amount  equal  to  the 
amount  put  in  circulation  at  the  end  of  the  war  by  the 
necessities  of  the  Government ;  for  labor  and  property  had 
been  given  for  every  dollar,  allowed  to  circulate  as  money. 

Such  a  legal  tender  paper  would  be  a  bond  and  mortgage 
on  the  whole  property  of  the  country,  and  a  bond  of  union 
among  the  States,  and  would  leave  gold  and  silver  to  be  an 
article  of  commerce  in  the  hands  of  those  who  hold  it. 

Free  trade  is  beautiful  in  theory,  and  will  be  in  practice, 
where  all  things  are  equal  and  peaceful  in  the  relations  of 
nations,  and  rapid  transit  shall  go  far  to  annihilate  space. 

Our  Government,  having  allowed  and  used  paper  money, 
until  the  day's  labor  has  been  made  to  cost  at  least  one- third 
more  than  a  similar  day's  labor  would  cost  in  other  countries, 


200  COI]tf  AND   PAPEE  CUEEENCY. 


to  bring  about  an  equality  in  trade,  will  require  a  tariff, 
based  on  the  difference  in  the  cost,  that  will  purchase  a  day's 
labor  in  our  country,  as  compared  with  that  of  foreign  coun- 
tries. 

If  the  farmers  desire  to  secure  for  themselves  a  reliable 
market  and  the  highest  price  for  their  product,  they  must 
use  the  means  best  calculated  to  effect  that  object  —  they 
must  encourage  the  manufacture  of  the  articles  they  consume 
and  have  them  made  as  near  their  homes  as  possible.  This 
should  be  done  wherever  good  raw  materials  can  be  found, 
that  can  be  put  into  forms  of  usefulness  with  as  small  ex- 
pense of  labor  in  this  country  as  in  any  part  of  the  world. 

If  I  am  not  mistaken  our  country  will  rise  out  of  its  great 
embarrassment  in  a  way,  that  would  astonish  the  world,  if 
our  Government  would  perform  what  was  and  is  its  first  and 
most  important  duty. 

The  Constitution  made  it  the  duty  of  Congress  to  adopt 
measures,  that  will  "  establish  justice  ;"  that  is  the  only 
means  by  which  the  "  common  welfare  can  be  promoted." 

To  establish  justice  for  a  nation,  there  must  be  created  and 
maintained  a  just  and  uniform  system  of  money,  weights, 
and  measures. 

GEORGE  "W.  DEAN  tells  us  : 

"  Our  Government  can  only  hold  its  power  as  a  free  sys- 
tem by  avoiding  in  future  all  special,  partial,  or  class  legisla- 
tion, and  by  the  enactment  of  only  such  general  laws  as  are 
necessary  and  indispensible  to  establish  justice.  Justice  can 
only  be  established  '  and  the  general  welfare  promoted  '  by 
the  Government  holding  entire  control  over  all  that  is  al- 
lowed or  intended  to  measure  or  weigh  the  different  forms 
and  values  of  labor  in  its  course  of  exchange  from  one  per- 
son to  another. 

The  unparalleled  prosperity  of  France,  fresh  from  her  dis- 
astrous war,  can  only  be  attributed  to  her  wise  protective 
policy,  which  results  in  having  annually  a  balance  of  trade  of 
over  one  hundred  millions  in  her  favor. 


COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  201 

I  favor  a  free  list  and  low  duties  for  all  necessary  produc- 
tions imported,  which  we  ourselves  do  not  produce  and 
sell. 

A  tariff  for  revenue,  and  not  for  the  protection  of  Ameri- 
can industries,  would  quickly  cause  our  great  Republic  to  be 
reduced  to  the  level  of  European  countries — for  workingmen, 
a  country  to  migrate  from,  to  seek  elsewhere  work  and  a  liv- 
ing. 

Our  American  people  cannot  support  all  other  nation's  in- 
dustries and  our  own  beside,  as  low  duties  now  cause  us  to 
do.  A  tariff  law  for  American  industries  alone  would  dis- 
solve this  ruinous  and  unnatural  division  of  our  market,  as 
was  found  necessary  to  do  after  the  bankruptcies  of  1837 
and  1857,  to  our  country's  immediate  relief  from  depression 
of  business." 

Entreaties  and  petitions  remained  unanswered,  while  thou- 
sands of  industrious  men  and  women  were  suffering  for  the 
want  of  the  people's  money,  removed  from  circulation  by 
special  and  class  legislation.  Yet  see  how  one  of  our  lead- 
ing papers  speaks  of  the  ample  currency  given  to  the  nation 
in  1865 : 

"  The  necessities  of  the  war,  the  law  of  self-preservation, 
the  providing  for  the  common  defense,  and  the  general  wel- 
fare, gave  us  a  currency,  August  31,  1865,  according  to  the 
*  report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  as  quoted  by  the 
New  York  Times  in  1873,  of  $1,552,914,892.67. 

Consisting  of — 

United  States  notes,  greenbacks,  and  frac- 
tional currency $459,505,311  51 

National  and  State  bank  notes 250,189,478  00 

Legal-tender  certificates  of  indebtedness, 

6  per  cent 85,095,000  00 

Legal-tender  temporary  loan 107,148,713  00 

Legal-tender  6  per  cent .      33,954,230  00 

Legal-tender  3.65  per  cent 217,024,160  16 

Total. .  $1,152,914,892  67 


202  COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

— legal  tender  money  for  the  most  part,  and  all  in  circula- 
tion as  money  throughout  the  country. 

To  this  circulation  also  properly  belong  the  7.30  interest 
notes  ($830,000,000)  which,  under  the  acts  of  June  30, 1864, 
and  March  3,  1865,  were  currency  according  to  Mr.  Spinner 
in  his  letter  to  John  G.  Drew,  which  read  as  follows : 

"  MOHAWK,  August  24,  1876. 

DEAR  SIR  :  Your  letter  of  the  15th  instant  is  received. 
I  have  to  say  that  the  7.30  Treasury  notes  were  intended, 
prepared,  issued  and  used  as  currency. 

Yery  respectfully  yours. 

F.  E.  SPINNER." 

Here  the  New  York  Times  congratulates  the  country  on 
acquiring  a  national  currency,  while  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  urges  its  contraction,  as  shown  by  what  follows : 

Mr.  Secretary  McCulloch,  in  his  annual  report  to  Con- 
gress in  1865,  in  which  he  was  urging  upon  Congress  the 
adoption  of  the  contraction  scheme,  says :  "  The  people  are 
comparatively  free  from  debt." 

This  he  gives  as  a  reason  why  it  is  safe  to  enter  upon  con- 
traction— that  contraction,  which  has  ruined  and  pauperized 
one-half  of  our  people.  Who  can  portray  the  experience  and 
suffering  of  the  American  people  since  that  fatal  hour? 
Hoping,  that  the  people  may  arouse  and  take  the  Govern- 
ment once  more  into  their  own  hands,  and  that  our  civilization 
may  be  made  better  through  our  great  suffering,  I  will  not 
trespass  further  upon  the  time  of  the  House.  (This  is  part  of 
a  remonstrance,  uttered  in  the  House  by  one  of  its  members 
against  contraction.) 

All  the  invalidating  financial  laws  were  passed  in  direct 
opposition  to  the  warning  advice,  given  by  your  present  Sec- 
retary Sherman,  when  in  the  Senate,  1869.  He  then  des- 
cribed, in  language  never  to  be  forgotten,  the  scenes  of 
misery  and  ruin,  that  would  come  upon  our  country  as  a 
consequence  of  taking  away  from  the  people  the  legal  money 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  203 

they  had  received  in  payment  for  all  the  labor  and  property 
they  had  passed  into  the  possession  of  the  Government,  in 
exchange  for  the  legal  dollars  they  had  received.  Secretary 
Sherman  was  right,  when  in  the  Senate,  1869,  he  declared, 
that  "  every  citizen  in  the  United  States  had  conformed  his 
business  to  the  legal  tender  clause  of  the  law,  regulating  the 
currency  of  the  country."  He  said  that  "  the  appreciation 
of  the  currency  is  a  far  more  distressing  operation  than 
Senators  supposed." 

I  am  glad  to  find  that  those,  who  are  striving  to  drive  our 
country  back  into  the  "  barbarism  "  of  a  metalic  basis  for 
currency,  are  fast  giving  way  for  want  of  argument.  It  is 
being  discovered,  that  all  the  great  writers,  who  have 
analyzed  the  subject,  and  have  viewed  it  from  a  scientific 
standpoint, '  came  to  the  conclusion,  that  paper  money  is 
superior  to  metal  for  a  currency. 

It  would  seem  as  though  a  President  with  his  Cabinet  and 
Congress,  with  such  advice  and  facts  of  past  experience  before 
them,  might  have  avoided  a  repetition  of  similar  distress  and 
ruin  to  their  country,  in  1873.  If  the  resumption  act  was 
due  to  ignorance  or  carelessness,  it  should  be  reprehensible  / 
and,  if  due  to  anything  else  it  should  be  punished  as  treason, 
being  unconstitutional,  etc 

Extracts  from  two  letters  to  his  Excellency,  President 
Hayes,  June  1,  1877,  and  August  6,  1877 : 

Your  noble  course  lias,  thus  far,  inspired  the  people  with 
the  hope  and  trust  that  you  will,  in  the  providence  of  God, 
be  our  country's  Moses,  to  lead  the  people  from  a  threatened 
bondage,  that  now  hangs  over  the  liberties  and  happiness  of 
the  American  people. 

This  bondage  has  its  manifold  centre  and  its  secret  force 
in  more  than  two  thousand  banks,  that  are  scattered  through- 
out the  country.  All  these  banks  are  organized  expressly 
to  loan  out  their  own  money  and  the  money  of  all  those, 
who  will  entrust  them  with  deposits.  These  loans  are  made 
to  men,  whose  business  lives  will  soon  become  dependent  on 
money,  borrowed  from  corporations,  that  have  a  special 


204  COIN  AND   PAPEK   CURRENCY. 

interest  of  their  own.  Such  a  power  of  wealth,  under  the 
control  of  the  selfish  instincts  of  mankind,  will  always  be 
able  to  control  the  action  of  our  Government,  unless  that 
Government  is  directed  by  strict  principles  of  justice  and  of 
the  public  welfare.  The  banks  will  favor  a  course  of  spe- 
cial and  partial  legislation,  in  order  to  increase  their  power 
— u  for  even  the  good  want  power  ; "  they  will  never  cease 
to  ask  for  more,  as  long  as  there  is  more,  that  can  be  wrung 
from  the  toiling  masses  of  the  American  people. 

Such  a  power  should  never  be  allowed  to  go  out  from  the 
entire  and  complete  control  of  the  people's  Government. 
The  struggle  with  this  money-power,  intrenched  in  the  spe- 
cial privileges  of  banks,  has  been  going  on  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  history  of  this  country.  It  has  engaged  the 
attention  of  our  wisest  and  most  patriotic  statesmen.  Frank- 
lin, Jefferson,  "Webster,  Calhoun,  Jackson,  have  all  spoken 
of  the  danger  of  such  a  power,  and  the  necessity  of  guard- 
ing against  it. 

In  the  opinion  of  Thomas  Jefferson  the  Constitution  has 
made  this  subject  clear,  plain  and  positive.  He  says: 
"  Bank  paper  must  ~be  suppressed,  and  the  circulation  must 
be  restored  to  the  nation,  to  whom  it  belongs." 

The  present  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Hon.  John  Sher- 
man, speaking  in  the  Senate,  when  the  subject  of  regulating 
the  currency  was  under  consideration,  declared  it  to  be  a 
fact,  that  "  every  citizen  of  the  United  States  had  conformed 
his  business  to  the  legal  tender  clause."  That  Senator  fur- 
ther declared,  as  appears  by  the  Congressional  Record, 
that  "  if  the  bondholder  refuses  to  take  the  same  kind  of 
money,  with  which  he  bought  the  bonds,  he  is  an  extortioner 

and  a  repudiator There  is  no  such  burdensome 

loan  negotiated  by  any  civilized  nation  in  the  world  as  our 
five- twenty  bonds,  if  they  are  to  be  paid  in  gold."  And  yet 
these  very  six  per  cent,  bonds,  that  were  issued  under  a  law, 
that  made  them  payable  in  the  currency  of  the  country,  have, 
by  a  most  cruel  and  unaccountable  change  in  the  law,  been 
made  payable  in  gold — the  very  bonds,  which  had  been  sold 


AND   PAPEE  CUKKENCY.  205 

at  from  forty  to  sixty  dollars  in  gold  for  one  hunred  in  cur- 
rency, thereby  causing  a  debt,  that  now  hangs  like  a  millstone 
on  the  neck  of  the  nation. 

I  find  myself  compelled  to  agree  with  Senator  Jones, 
when  he  says,  that  "  the  present  is  the  acceptable  time  to 
undo  the  unwitting  and  blundering  work  of  1873.  .  .  . 
We  cannot,  we  dare  not,  avoid  speedy  action  on  the  sub- 
ject. Not  only  does  reason,  justice  and  authority  unite  in 
urging  us  to  retrace  our  steps,  but  the  organic  law  com- 
mands us  to  do  so,  and  the  presence  of  peril  enjoins  what 
the  law  commands" 

I  have  ventured  this  long  letter  in  the  firm  belief,  that  the 
adoption  of  a  permanent,  unfluctuating  national  currency, 
as  before  stated,  equal  to  the  amount  actually  found  in  circu- 
lation at  the  close  of  the  war,  and  that  amount  shall  never 
be  increased,  only  as  per  capita  with  the  increase  of  the  in- 
habitants of  our  country — such  a  measure  of  all  internal 
values,  with  a  revenue  tariff  of  specific  duties  to  be  obtained 
from  the  smallest  number  of  articles,  that  will  give  the 
amount  needed  for  an  economical  Government — such  a 
national  policy  would  introduce  prosperity  once  more  into 
the  trade,  commerce  and  finances  of  this  country,  etc. 

Real  estate  has  depreciated  to  less  than  half  of  what  it 
would  have  brought  four  years  ago ;  much  of  it  cannot  be 
sold  for  any  price,  or  mortgage  for  one -quarter  its  value. 
The  thriving  and  enterprising  farmer  of  the  West,  especially, 
feels  this  rise  in  the  value  of  money,  as  compared  with  labor 
or  property.  With  the  hardy  toil  of  years,  he  has  opened  and 
improved  his  farm,  and  the  comparative  small  loan,  which  laid 
but  a  light  weight  on  the  resources  of  his  land  in  prosperous 
times,  and  with  a  sufficiency  of  money,  is  now  threatening  to 
swallow  up  the  labor  of  his  life !  Even  the  banks  and  the 
loaning  institutions,  not  being  able  to  invest  their  money  on 
"  good  securities,"  are  embarassed  on  both  sides — the  failure 
of  their  debtors,  which  throws  so  many  of  the  securities  on 
their  hands,  and  makes  "  bonds  and  mortgages  "  a  "  glut  in 
the  market,"  and  the  difficulty  of  making  any  new  loans  or 


206         COIN  AND  PAPER  CUKRENCY. 

investments — so  that  money  "  goes  a  begging  "  at  one  and  a 
half  and  two  per  cent.,  etc.  .  .  .  . 

In  the  year  1865  there  was  in  the  hands  of  the  people  as 
a  currency  $58  per  head  ;  in  1875  the  currency  of  all  kinds 
was  only  a  little  more  than  §\.1  per  head. 

You  may  call  this  currency  a  vast  debt  of  the  people,  as 
it  was  in  money — every  dollar  of  it.  It  was  paid  by  the 
Government  "  for  value  received  ; "  it  was  used  by  the  peo- 
ple to  pay  their  debts,  to  measure  the  value  of  their  prop- 
erty, and,  as  your  present  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  said  in 
his  seat  in  the  Senate,  "  every  citizen  of  the  United  States 
had  conformed  his  business  to  the  legal  tender  clause" 

This  currency  was  also  the  creature  of  law,  and  under  the 
entire  control  of  the  Government,  but  held  in  trust  for  the  ben- 
efit of  the  people,  as  are  all  its  functions.  Was  it  either  just 
or  humane  to  allow  $1,100,000,000  of  this  currency,  a  large 
part  bearing  no  interest  but  paying  labor,  and  fructifying 
every  business  enterprise  to  be  absorbed  into  bonds  in  the 
space  of  eight  years,  bearing  a  heavy  interest,  of  which  the 
bondholder  bore  no  share  ?  (See  Spaulding's  "  History  of 
the  Currency."  The  Government  seemed  to  administer  this 
vast  currency,  as  if  there  were  but  one  interest  in  the  nation 
to  be  promoted,  and  that  the  profit  of  those,  who  desired 
to  fund  their  money  with  the  greatest  security,  and  to  make 
money  scarce  and  of  high  rate  of  interest!  This  is  the 
issue  of  the  hour  •  this  is  the  battle  of  the  people  and  for  the 
people,  in  which  the  present  administration  is  called  upon  to 
declare  which  side  it  will  taJce,  etc 

If  the  people  can  look  for  no  relief  from  the  present  Con- 
gress and  Administration — if  those,  who  now  sway  the 
financial  interests  of  the  country,  cannot  see  their  great  op- 
portunity— then  new  men  must  be  chosen  by  the  people, 
whom  they  can  trust  to  make  laws  and  execute  measures, 
that  u  shall  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  themselves  and 
their  posterity." 

I  appeal  from  those,  who  seem  insensible  to  the  cry  of  the 
people,  to  the  people  themselves.  I  appeal  from  the  politi- 


COIN  AND  PAPEEX  CURRENCY.  207 

cal  parties,  organized  to  control  the  Government,  and  dis- 
tribute the  offices  and  emoluments  of  office  to  the  great  in- 
dustrial classes,  who  are  organized  to  protect  their  interests 
and  obtain  some  recognition  of  their  rights  from  the  Gov- 
ernment. Let  them  substitute  co-operation  for  "  strikes," 
and  unite  to  save  themselves  and  the  country  from  the  pres- 
ent disaster  and  distress  to  all  the  industrial  classes.  Let 
no  man  think  of  the  bullet,  while  he  has  the  ballot  in  his 
hand.  It  needs  but  the  use  of  that  simple  instrument  of 
political  power  to  rectify  all  our  discontents  and  social  evils, 
for  Webster  tells  us  :  "  Power  was  given  to  Congress  over 
the  currency  and  over  the  money  of  the  country." 

Let  us  have  our  national  currency  daily  honored  ;  left  us 
take  the  testimony  of  the  nation's  experience,  and  that  of 
other  countries,  as  to  what  such  currency  can  do  for  our 
prosperity ;  let  the  gold  par  be  reached  by  rendering  our 
currency  of  higher  and  indispensable  uses,  as  now  exempli- 
fied in  France,  and  not  by  contracting  its  amount ;  and  let 
its  volume  and  its  value  be  determined  by  the  interconvert- 
ible bond,  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  wants  of  the  people 
and  governed  by  all.  the  forms  and  sanctities  of  law ;  and 
not  surrender  the  currency  to  the  ever-changing  basis  of  a 
commodity  like  gold — and  we  shall  have  peace  on  this  ques- 
tion. "  Justice  will  be  established  and  the  general  welfare 
promoted ;"  prosperity  again  will  re- visit  us,  and  we  shall 
vindicate  the  wisdom  and  superiority  of  our  free  institutions 
before  the  world. 

France,  with  her  600,000,000  of  legal  paper,  has  kept  her 
industries  profitably  employed  by  keeping  her  paper  receiv- 
able for  all  forms  of  taxes,  duties,  and  debts. 

My  views  upon  the  currency  I  have  heretofore  briefly  ex- 
pressed as  follows : 

The  worth  or  exchangeable  value  of  gold  is  as  uncertain 
as  other  products  of  human  labor,  such  as  wheat  or  cotton. 
The  exchangeable  value  of  anything  depends  on  its  convert- 
ibility into  something  else,  that  has  value  at  the  option  of  the 
individual.  This  rule  applies  to  paper  money  as  to  any- 


208  COIN  AND  PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

thing  else.  But  how  shall  Government  give  an  exchange- 
able value  to  a  paper  currency  ?  Can  it  be  done  by  a  stand- 
ard, which  is  beyond  its  control  and  which  naturally  fluctu- 
ates, while  the  sign  of  exchange,  indicated  by  the  paper, 
remains  the  same  ?  etc.  .  . 

The  time  has  come,  when  the  claims  of  a  common  human- 
ity, and  all  that  can  move  the  manhood  of  an  American  cit- 
izen, must  unite  in  a  demand  for  an  act  of  common  justice, 
now  due  to  the  American  people,  who  have  saved  our  coun- 
try from  ruin,  and  will,  I  trust,  forever  protect  it.  The 
Constitution  has  made  it  the  first  and  most  important  duty 
of  Congress  "  to  establish  justice,  insure  domestic  tranquil- 
lity, provide  for  the  common  defence,  promote  the  general 
welfare,  and  secure  the  Hessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and 
our  posterity" 

In  all  I  have  written  and  quoted  from  writings  of  others, 
my  object  has  been  to  impress  on  the  minds  of  the  American 
people  the  unmeasured  importance  of  a  strict  compliance 
with  the  letter  and  spirit  of  a  Constitution,  that  requires  the 
establishment  of  justice,  based  on  a  national  currency  as  un- 
fluctuating as  possible,  which  alone  can  guarantee  to  this  great 
and  glorious  country  a  Republican  form  of  government,  with 
the  blessings  of  liberty  secured  to  ourselves  and  our  posterity. 

To  complete  this  appeal  to  my  countrymen,  I  add  the  fol- 
lowing system  of  finance,  devised  by  the  veteran  financier, 
Silas  M.  Stilwell,  author  of  the  beneficent  "  Stilwell  Act," 
and  father  of  our  "  Greenbacks,"  wrongly  attributed  to  Sec- 
retary Chase.* 

"THE  CAUSE  AND  CUKE  OF  NATIONAL  AND  INDIVIDUAL 
DISTRESS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

To  the  Producing  Classes  in  the  Union  : 

The  great  oppression  you  feel  to-day  is  produced  by  Debt 
and  its  unfailing  attendant,  interest  or  usury. 

*  As  stated  by  Edward  Jordon,  Esq.,  private  secretary  and  confidential 
friend  of  Chief  Justice  Chase,  to  a  reporter  of  the  New  York  Graphic, 
September  21,  1878. 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY.  209 

The  question  most  vital  to  the  material  interests  of  the 
people  is:  'How  shall  we  get  relief  from  the  burden  of  debt 
and  taxation.' 

The  distinction  made  by  law  between  convertible  and  in- 
convertible property,  is  the  great  objection  to  debt  and  credit. 

All  property  is  directly  or  indirectly  the  product  of  labor, 
and  would  be  equally  convertible,  if  the  laws  did  not  make 
an  arbitrary  distinction. 

Money  is  always  in  a  convertible  condition,  and  will  pay 
all  debts.  Other  property  is  not  so  convertible,  and  will  not 
be  received  in  payment  of  a  debt. 

An  increase  in  the  volume  of  money  is  the  only  remedy 
for  our  present  grievances. — Debtors  with  inconvertible 
property  are  everywhere,  while,  monopolists  and  non-pro- 
ducers hold  all  the  money. 

A  debt  of  one  thousand  dollars  will,  and  often  does,  take 
by  force  from  the  debtor,  a  farm,  a  house,  or  other  property 
that  has  cost  the  owner  ten  thousand  dollars. 

Debt,  Debt  is  everywhere^  and  can  be  paid  only  with 
money  ! 

It  has  been  incurred  by  States,  cities,  counties,  towns,  vil- 
lages, corporations  and  individuals  to  an  amount  fearful  to 
contemplate. 

Nine-tenths  of  the  unproductive  real  estate  in  our  coun- 
try is  totally  unsalable,  and  will  not  bring,  at  public  auction, 
the  tax  charged  upon  it. 

This  mighty  and  ghastly  incubus  must  be  removed. 

It  is  the  '  nightmare?  that  sits  upon  and  robs  the  debtor 
and  producer  of  rest  and  sleep,  and  the  citizen  of  his  birth- 
right, '  Life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.' 

We  have  a  right  to  repeal  the  obnoxious  lawr,  that  makes 
one  thing  convertible  and  another  inconvertible  ;  but,  at  this 
time,  we  propose  to  change  it,  so  far  only  as  to  increase  the 
volume  of  money,  and  pay  the  debts  of  the  people  through 
the  agency  of  the  States. 

Our  plan  is  brief  and  plain : 

By  an  estimate  carefully  made,  we  learn  that  the  lawful 
14 


210  COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

currency  of  our  country  in  time  of  peace  and  general  pros- 
perity, in  a  population  of  fifty  or  sixty  millions,  should  not 
be  less  than  two  thousand  millions  of  dollars  for  permanent 
domestic  use,  in  local  trade  and  commerce  among  our  people. 

The  great  credit  we  now  enjoy  as  a  nation,  is  produced 
by  the  ' peaceful  Union'  of  these  States.  Therefore,  we 
propose  to  appropriate  a  part  of  this  credit  to  the  direct 
benefit  and  pecuniary  relief  of  the  States  and  people,  who 
have  produced  this  'peaceful  Union? 

The  power  to  produce  money  or  tokens  of  legal  value  out 
of  anything,  is  the  exclusive  right  and  duty  of  Congress. 

In  countries  where  education,  character,  credit,  and  civil- 
ization are  NOT  known,  the  authorities  coin  and  circulate 
metal,  according  to  a  standard  of  metal  value.  But  where 
civilization,  education,  and  good  government  are  found,  we 
use  credit,  as  and  for  money,  in  the  place  of  an  expensive 
and  cumbersome  metal. 

By  using  credit  as  money  instead  of  metal,  we  save  the 
interest  on  two  thousand  millions  of  dollars  in  currency. 

And  as  money  is  a  continuous  necessity  in  all  our  States, 
and  cannot  be  dispensed  with  or  reduced  in  volume  without 
great  loss  to  the  people,  there  is  no  demand  for  a  redemption 
fund,  and  will  be  none  as  long  as  the  nation  exists.  Thus  it 
is,  that  this  vast  sum  of  money  in  greenbacks  will  bear  no 
interest  and  require  no  redemption  fund.  This  is  the  logical 
reward  for  a  'peaceful  Union? 

This  sum  of  money  in  greenbacks  we  propose  to  divide 
among  the  several  States  of  this  Union  according  to  popula- 
tion. 

This  plan  and  proposition  will  be  not  only  a  just,  but  a 
graceful  act.  It  will  do  more  to  harmonize  and  fraternize 
the  feelings  of  the  people  of  the  whole  Union,  than  any 
other  legislation  can  do.  It  will  be  '  killing  the  fatted  calf.' 
It  will  restore  to  the  people  the  money  they  earned  and  ac- 
cumulated during  the  war,  and  which  was  unjustly  taken 
from  them. 

A  feeling  of  relief  horn  debt  will  be  pleasant  to  all,  and, 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CURRENCY.  211 

as  it  will  be  the  effect  and  result  of  the  < peaceful  Union '  of 
these  States,  each  one  and  all  will  rejoice,  that  the  Union 
has  produced  such  happy  consequences. 

As  this  money  will  not  be  a  loan,  but  a  free  '  constitu- 
tional '  gift  from  the  people  to  the  people,  it  should  be  so 
divided  among  the  States,  that  every  citizen  should  repre- 
sent an  integral  part  of  the  whole  sum. 

The  States  should  be  required  to  pay  all  State  and  muni- 
cipal debts,  before  appropriating  the  money  to  any  other 
purpose. 

In  connection  with  the  delivery  of  this  sum  of  money  to 
the  States,  each  State  should  be  required  to  enact  laws,  that 
shall  reduce  the  rate  of  interest  to  four  or  five  per  cent.,  and 
prohibit  every  State  and  every  municipal  body,  created  by 
the  States,  to  contract  any  bonded  debt. 

To  encourage  cash  payments  and  discourage  the  creation 
of  debts,  a  law  should  be  passed  declaring,  that  after  this 
plan  of  finance  shall  be  approved,  all  new  debts  shall  be 
debts  of  konor  only,  and  no  court  shall  have  power  to  en- 
force the  payment  of  such  debts. 

This  jpo^tftf-financial  system  will  be  acceptable  to  every 
patriotic,  good,  and  wise  person  in  the  Union,  and  will  be 
strenuously  opposed  by  monopolists,  usurers,  and  their  parti- 
sans. 

By  this  great  scientific  plan  all  our  States  and  people  will 
feel  the  value  and  beneficence  of  a  'peaceful  Union '  and  be 
relieved  from  debt  without  the  payment  of  one  dollar;  while 
every  creditor  will  be  paid  in  money  without  loss  of  princi- 
pal or  interest. 

The  payment  of  State  and  municipal  debt  will  set  free  an 
enormous  amount  of  capital,  which  will  seek  reinvestment, 
and  not  only  reduce  the  rate  of  interest,  but  will  enter  into 
all  the  business  enterprises  of  the  country,  that  are  now 
languishing  for  want  of  capital. 

In  this  plan  we  claim  for  the  States  and  people,  from  the 
federal  power,  the  exclusive  use  of  the  right  to  create  a  cur- 
rency for  the  people — NOTHING  MOKE. 


212  COIN  AND   PAPEE   CTJKKENCY. 

As  the  currency  is  for  domestic  use  only,  it  is  proper  that 
the  people  should  be  allowed  to  choose  the  kind  of  money 
they  will  employ  in  daily  transactions.  None  but  monop- 
olists and  usurers  would  deny  them  this  right. 

This  plan  is  so  plain  and  practical,  that  we  place  it  before 
you  in  the  shape  of  a  question,  thus : 

Will  you  use  greenbacks  for  all  domestic  purposes,  as  and 
for  money,  and  have  your  debts  paid  for  you, — or  will  you 
refuse  the  greenbacks,  and  remain  burdened  with  debt  and 
taxation  ?" 

I  believe  this  system,  enacted  into  law  by  the  next  Con- 
gress, would  cause  our  country  to  enter  upon  an  unparalleled 
career  of  prosperity,  secure  our  free  institutions  for  ever, 
and  stimulate  other  nations  to  imitate  our  example  in  finance 
and  Republican  forms  of  Government. 

Most  respectfully, 

PETER  COOPER. 

p.S. — Should  any  reader  of  the,  preceding  pages  mis- 
understand my  wishes,  let  me  state  them  in  concise  lan- 
guage. I  desire : — 

First.  A  national  paper  currency,  issued  solely  by  the 
Government,  and  made  the  only  legal  tender,  receivable  for 
all  taxes  and  dues,  and  fundable  at  any  time  for  an  equit- 
able rate  of  interest,  by  being  made  interconvertible  with 
the  bonds  of  the  Government. 

The  volume  of  this  currency  must  be  determined  by  law, 
as  per  capita. 

Second.  A  tariff  not  simply  for  revenue,  but  made  dis- 
criminating and  helpful  to  all  the  industries  of  the  country, 
where  the  .raw  material  and  the  labor  can  be  furnished  by 
our  own  people. 

Third.  A  "civil  service,"  divorced  from  party  politics, 
and  organized  for  the  public  service,  as  are  the  departments 
of  the  army  or  navy,  purely  on  personal  qualification  and 
thorough  fitness.  The  offices  to  be  held  during  good  be- 
havior, on  moderate  salaries,  but  pensions  provided  for  all 


COIN  AND   PAPEE   CURRENCY.  213 

disqualified  by  age  or  sickness,  and  a  provision  made  for  the 
widows  and  orphans. 

ADDENDA. 

All  those,  who  favor  a  purely  national  currency,  must  re- 
joice to  find  expressions  like  these  in  Secretary  Sherman's 
letter  to  the  Bankers'  Association,  at  Saratoga,  August  12, 
1880: 

"  The  wisdom  of  the  Sub- Treasury  system,  established  in 
1846,  is  not  to-day  questioned  by  any  one,  etc.  .  .  . 
Every  country  should  have  not  only  a  sound  and  uniform 
currency,  but  should  have  of  it  such  an  amount  as  its  busi- 
niss  may  require,  etc"  .  .  . 

These  ideas  show,  that  the  Hon.  Secretary  has  not  en- 
tirely changed  and  abandoned  the  opinions  he  uttered  on 
contraction  in  the  Senate  1869,  as  quoted  pp.  32  and  33, — 
and  that  he  may  yet  aid  the  real  patriots  to  establish  a 
purely  national  paper  currency,  as  proposed  in  the  preced- 
ing pages,  thus  giving  to  the  nation  all  the  benefit  granted 
by  the  Constitution,  and  not  to  a  few  bankers  and  capital- 
ists, who  can  at  any  time  expand  and  contract  the  national 
currency,  and  thus  derange  the  business  operations  of  the 
whole  country. 

.This  letter  indicates  that  the  Secretary  has  no  settled 
ideas  concerning  finance.  Perhaps,  while  he  was  writing  it, 
he  remembered  his  solemn  declaration  to  the  Senate,  that 
"  every  citizen  in  the  United  States  had  conformed  his  busi- 
ness to  the  legal  tender  clause,"  and  that  contraction  "  would 
be  an  act  of  folly  without  an  example  of  evil  in  modern 
times" 


Address  on  the  occasion  of  introducing  Representative 
De  La  Matyr,  at  the  Hall  of  Cooper  Union,  February  20th, 
1880: 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  :  We  have  met,  my  friends,  to 
hear  a  speech  from  a  gentlemen,  a  Representaive  of  the 


214  COIN   AND   PAPER   CUEKENCY. 

people  in  Congress,  on  one  of  the  most  important  subjects, 
that  can  engage  the  attention  of  the  American  people. 

I  will  not  anticipate,  by  any  long  address,  what  may  be 
said  more  fitly  by  the  gentleman,  who  has  kindly  consented 
to  address*  us  to-night. 

But  I  desire  to  say,  that  it  is  only  by  such  open,  and 
thorough  discussions  of  the  financial  policy  of  the  Govern- 
ment, that  the  people  can  be  brought  to  a  right  understand- 
ing on  this  great  and  all  important  question.  By  this 
method  alone  we  may  hope  to  settle  in  a  peaceable  way  the 
disputes,  that  have  arisen  out  of  a  conflict  of  opinion  on 
those  great  vested  interests,  now  at  war  with  the  best  inter- 
ests of  this  glorious  country.  • 

It  is  time  for  the  American  people  to  know,  that  they 
have  not  yet  conquered  all  opposition  to  their  inalienable 
rights.  They  have  not  securely  achieved  their  true  independ- 
ence of  foreign  Governments.  This  greatest  achievement  still 
remains  unaccomplished. 

It  is  to  obtain  their  financial  independence,  and  the  right 
to  control  their  own  finances,  in  a  way  that  will  "  establish 
justice." 

This  whole  problem  of  a  nation's  financial  independence 
may  be  stated  in  a  few  words. 

The  Constitution  has  made  it  the  duty  of  Congress  to  take 
and  hold  the  entire  power  "  to  coin  money  and  regulate  the 
value  thereof,"  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  forms  of  money. 

When  a  man  carries  his  bullion  to  the  Government  Mint, 
and  has  it  stamped  into  coin,  it  is  his  own  property  and  his 
own  money,  that  is  stamped,  and  is  simply  authorized  and 
endorsed  by  the  Government,  who  alone  has  the  power  to 
create  legal  money. 

.  "When  a  Bank  goes  to  the  Government,  to  authorize,  and 
endorse  notes  as  money,  it  simply  makes  use  of  the  Govern- 
ment authority  to  set  its  own  price  on  the  property  and 
credit  of  the  Bank. 

But,  when  a  people  issues  its  own  money  through  the 
Government  authority,  and  pays  it  out  for  value  received, 


COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  215 

• 

in  the  shape  of  labor,  service  or  commodities,  needed  for  its 
own  use,  then  it  is  their  own  credit,  and  their  own  money, 
that  is  supported  by  the  enterprise  and  property  of  the 
nation. 

This  is  what  we  demand  in  behalf  of  the  people  ;  this  is 
what,  is  denied  under  one  pretext  or  another  by  those,  who 
think,  that  their  own  peculiar  interests  or  privileges  are 
invaded. 

But  it  is  "  an  irrepressible  conflict ; "  and  who  doubts  but 
what  it  must  and  will  go  on,  until  this  great  question  is 
settled  either  in  the  despotism  of  an  oligarchy  of  money,  or 
in  the  triumph  of  the  people. 

If  the  people  have  a  "  right  to  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness,"  they  have  a  right  to  control  the  cause  that 
concerns  their  lives,  their  liberty  and  their  happiness  more 
than  any  other  cause ;  and  that  is  the  true  financial  policy 
of  this  Government.  It  must  be  a  policy,  over  which  the 
Government  can  exercise  an  entire  control. 

This  financial  policy  has  hitherto  been  conducted  in  the 
interest  of  a  class,  and  not  of  the  people. 

No  better  proof  of  this  can  be  given  than  that,  found  in 
the  history  of  this  country  for  the  last  twenty  years. 

On  the  threshold  of  a  great  civil  war,  which  threatened 
the  very  existence  of  the  nation,  the  capitalists  of  this  coun- 
try and  of  foreign  countries,  were  unwilling  or  unable,  to 
supply  the  wants  of  the  Government  for  money  on  a  specie 
basis. 

They  offered  their  credit  only  without  specie  redemption. 

It  was  then  that  a  great  statesmen,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  recognized  the  fact,  that  the  credit  of  a  Govern- 
ment, such  as  ours,  was  worth  more  than  that  of  all  the 
banks  of  the  country,  united  to  that  of  all  the  capitalists  in 
Europe. 

Secretary  Chase  resolved,  as  he  said,  to  "  cut  up  the  credit 
of  the  country  into  small  pieces  of  paper,  and  circulate  them 
as  money."  He  did  so ;  and  more  than  $2,000,000,000  of 
legal  tender  found  its  way  into  the  hands  of  the  people. 


216  COIN   AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

• 

It  was  purchased  by  the  people's  labor,  service  and  com- 
modities, which  might  have  drawn  the  same,  in  gold  and 
silver  out  of  the  mines.  It  was,  at  once,  put  by  the  people 
to  the  most  indespensable  use, — that  of  paying  all  debts, 
incurred  for  labor,  service  or  commodties,  all  over  the  coun- 
try. It  paid  for  all  the  labor  and  maintenance  of  the  poor, 
and  supported  the  enterprises  of  all  business. 

It  was  a  most  cruel  outrage  on  the  rights  of  the  people  to 
turn  all  but  a  fraction  of  this  real  money,  so  earned  and 
paid  for  by  the  people,  into  a  bonded  debt,  paying  interest 
to  those,  who  have  been  relieved  from  taxation,  both  State 
and  National. 

This  is  the  great  wrong,  that  the  American  people  have 
suffered  at  the  hands  of  their  rulers.  This  wrong  must  be 
redressed.  Justice  must  be  established  as  the  only  means  by 
which  the  domestic  tranquillity  of  this  great  nation  can  be 
secured. 

We  meet  here  to-night  to  invoke  the  attention  of  the 
American  people,  in  this  Great  Hall,  devoted  to  the  promo- 
tion of  art  and  science,  and  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole 
country. 

I  recommend,  therefore,  the  Hon.  Mr.  De  La  Matyr,  to 
the  respectful  attention  of  this  audience. 

His  commanding  position,  as  a  Representative  of  the  peo- 
ple, his  superior  attention  and  study  of  the  financial  subject, 
and  his  great  zeal  in  the  cause  of  a  true  national  currency, 
qualify  him  to  instruct  the  public. 

He  will  show  you  how  unjust  and  cruel  have  been  the 
financial  laws,  that  have  been  passed  for  the  last  few  years. 
They  have  filled  a  great  and  prosperous  country  with  the 
desolation  of  a  large  portion  of  its  business,  and  have  forced 
idleness  and  pauperism  on  thousands  of  its  honest  laborers. 

"  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them ;"  these  are  the  fruits 
of  a  legislation,  which  degraded  the  people's  money,  by  re- 
fusing to  receive  it  for  duties  and  the  interest  of  the  public 
debt ;  which  promised  coin  for  the  interest  and  principal  of 
the  public  debt,  when  that  was  known  to  be  a  physical 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUKKENCY.  217 

and  moral  impossibility ;  and  the  whole  credit  of  the  cur- 
rency was  made  to  rest  upon  how  little  coin  would  be  called 
for;  a  legislation  which  has  finally  placed  a  bonded  debt 
of  two  thousand  millions  as  a  yoke  upon  the  necks  of  this 
people,  under  the  pretence  of  their  obligation  to  pay  for  a 
currency,  that  had  already  been  paid  for  by  the  labor,  ser- 
vice and  commodities.  It  is  no  more  a  debt,  than  the  gold 
and  silver,  won  from  the  mine  by  labor,  and  stamped  by  the 
Government  as  money. 

To  know  the  real  duties  of  every  administration  of  our 
Government,  and  the  spirit  and  purpose  of  every  law  en- 
acted, we  must  always  recur  to  that  grand  preamble  of  our 
Constitution,  that  condenses  all  a  nation's  wants  into  these 
few  words : 

"  We,  the  people  of  these  United  States,  in  order  to  form 
a  more  perfect  union,  establish  justice,  insure  domestic  tran- 
quillity, provide  for  the  common  defence,  promote  the  gen- 
eral welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves 
and  our  posterity,  do  ordain  and  establish  this  Constitution 

of  the  United  States  of  America." 

PETER  COOPER. 

HON.  PETER  COOPER. 

MY  VENERATED  FRIEND  :  Many  thanks  for  proof  sheets  of 
your  able  pamphlet.  I  am  gathering  facts  for  a  speech  on 
"  The  Folly  of  Substituting  Paper  Currency,  based  on 
Specie,  or  Interest-bearing  Bonds,  for  Money." 

I  desire  to  present  facts  as  concisely  stated  as  possible. 

Nearly  every  fact,  contained  in  your  article,  I  need.  I 
have  outlined  my  speech — 

1.  What  is  money? 

2.  The  instances,  in  which  paper  money  has  been  resorted 
to  in  national  exigencies,  and  the  results. 

3.  Commendation  of  paper  money  by  prominent  states- 
men, and  writers,  on  political  economy. 

4.  Instances  in  which  currency,  not  money,  has  failed  and 
the  results. 


218  COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY. 

5.  Cost  of  substituting  national  bank  currency,  based  on 
interest-bearing  bonds,  for  money,  in  our  recent  history. 

I  am  decidedly  in  favor  of  internal  improvements.  I  be- 
lieve we  could  employ  the  idle  in  such  works,  and  by  that 
means,  push  into  circulation  the  proper  amount  of  money. 

You  see  my  plan  of  a  speech  is  in  accord  with  your  article, 
and  if  it  please  you,  I  will  use  your  facts. 

I  desire  to  put  facts  in  all  the  points  above  noted,  in  such 
a  concise  form,  that  our  people  can  have  them  at  hand,  and 
that  they  may  convince  all,  who  will  consider  them. 

May  your  life,  which  has  been  a  perpetual  benediction  to 
the  poor,  linger  long  in  its  serene  evening,  diffusing  bless- 
ings.    Its  influence  shall  live  and  widen  forever.     I  con- 
gratulate you  on  the  rich  consciousness  of  such  a  life. 
Kespectf ully  yours, 

G.  DE  LA  MATYR. 


ARTICLE  ON  THE  CURRENCY,  1881. 

Section  9  of  the  Constitution  says : 

"  No  money  shall  be  drawn  from  the  Treasury  but  in 
consequence  of  appropriation  made  by  law ;  and  a  regular 
statement  and  amount  of  the  receipts  and  expenditures  of 
all  public  money  shall  be  published  from  time  to  time." 

The  money,  transferred  to  the  National  banks,  is  issued 
in  bulk,  not  ty  virtue  of  appropriations.  The  issue  is  not 
for  the  benefit  of  the  Government,  nor  for  the  benefit  of 
the  people.  It  is  issued  solely  for  the  benefit  and  profit 
of  individuals,  in  defiance  of  that  general  welfare,  which  it 
is  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  secure,  and  of  the  fore- 
going provision,  etc.  .  .  . 

It  is 'an  inexcusable,  unnecessary,  and  unequal  favoritism 
to  benefit  a  privileged  class.  It  is  inexcusable,  because 
the  Government  should  issue  the  currency,  as  it  does  the 
greenback,  and  thus  save  an  enormous  bounty,  taxed  .upon 
the  non-bondholding  masses,  thus  violating  that  equality 
and  justice  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Constitution  to  preserve. 

It  is  unnecessary,  for  the  people  prefer  the  greenback — • 


COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  219 

it  promotes  no  public  good,  "but  is  a  never-ending  public 
danger  to  promote  private  interests  and  corporate  profits. 

It  is  unequal  favoritism,  giving  to  2,400  banks,  millions 
in  yearly  bounties.  It  gives  to  bounty-fed  speculators  the 
power  other  capital  cannot  enjoy.  It  places  in  the  hands  of 
a  few  the  right  to  dominate  over  the  necessities  of  labor, 
of  business  and  of  values,  etc.  .  .  . 

It  is  based  on  individual  control  and  individual  credit. 
The  one  is  the  passion  of  an  hour,  the  other  is  as  fickle  as 
chance ;  and  these  features  are  all  there  is  of  the  National 
bank  system. 

Jefferson,  Franklin,  Madison,  Jackson,  Calhoun,  Benton, 
and  a  long  line  of  statesmen  and  judges,  whose  names  are 
identified  with  national  jurisprudence  in  every  State,  have 
declared  against  the  delegation  of  the  power  to  coin,  issue, 
or  regulate  the  money  of  the  nation  to  banks  and  bankers, 
and  it  is  time,  that  an  end  should  be  put  to  it.  We  have 
learned  to  appreciate  national  resources  and  credit  as  the 
basis  of  national  money,  and  national  financial  power,  as 
distinguished  from  individual  financial  power,  etc.  .  .  . 

Whether  the  people  will  longer  tolerate  individual  money, 
controlled  by  individual  speculators  and  corporate  combina- 
tions, to  promote  personal  aggrandizement,  and  consent  to 
be  taxed  to  sustain  a  favored  class  by  exemption  from  taxa- 
tion. Whether  they  will  longer  submit  to  having  bounties, 
taxed  upon  labor  and  production  to  sustain  an  unconstitu- 
tional, impolitic,  dangerous  monopoly,  combined  into  the 
almost  limitless  power  of  the  Bank  Association  to  force  a 
currency  upon  the  country,  which  individuals  can  expand 
and  contract  at  their  pleasure,  which  threatens  to  master 
and  control  Congress  by  its  power  to  keep  alive  privileges, 
bounties,  and  all  the  outrageous  usurpations  money  can 
make  profitable,  and  all  the  power  corruption  and  privilege 
can  wield  to  subdue  the  people.  The  voter  must  decide  it. 
The  decision  can  safely  be  entrusted  to  his  intelligence,  to 
his  common  sense,  and,  above  all,  to  the  duty  he  owes  to 
himself,  to  his  fellowmen  and  to  his  country. 


220         COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

We  call  upon  the  farmers,  the  workingmen,  the  business 
men  and  all,  who  love  free  institutions,  to  join  us  at  the 
polls  in  voting  away  this  unconstitutional  bank  currency,  as 
one  of  the  most  dangerous  evils,  that  threaten  a  constitu- 
tional Government  and  the  liberties  of  the  American  people. 
Let  us  unite  all  our  efforts  in  the  overthrow  of  this  greatest 
of  all  monopolies,  the  monopoly  in  money :  and  let  us  secure 
for  the  people  a  currency,  that  shall  be  the  unfluctuating 
measure  of  all  values,  receivable  for  all  taxes,  duties  and 
debts ;  a  currency,  that  is  both  Republican  and  Democratic 
in  its  morals,  social,  political  and  commercial  influences. 
Such  a  currency  the  United  States  legal-tender  Treasury 
notes  only  can  give. 

In  the  thousands  of  documents  I  sent  into  every  part  of 
our  country,  my  object  has  been  to  show,  that  the  Constitu- 
tion has  made  it  the  solemn  duty  of  Congress  to  take  and 
hold  the  entire  control  of  all  that  should  ever  have  been 
allowed  or  used  as  money. 

As  a  part  of  my  long  continued  efforts  to  obtain  for  our 
country  the  inestimable  blessing  of  a  national  currency  I 
sent  a  petition  to  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives 
on  the  14th  of  December,  1862,  at  the  very  time,  when 
Secretary  Chase  declared  to  his  confidential  adviser,  S.  M. 
Stilwell,  that  he  had  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  of 
bills  audited  without  a  dollar  in  the  Treasury  to  pay  them. 

PETER  COOPER. 


A  STRICTLY  NATIONAL  PAPER  CURRENCY,  BASED  ON  NATIONAL 
TAXATION,  is  THE  CHEAPEST,  SAFEST  AND  MOST  CONVEN- 
IENT MEDIUM  OF  EXCHANGE  FOR  A  REPUBLIC.  APRIL, 

1882. 

It  will  always  be  a  cause  of  regret  to  every  right  mind, 
looking  back  upon  the  wants  of  a  great  people  in  its  deprivation 
of  a  currency,  which  might  have  been  utilized  without  dif- 
ficulty in  making  exchanges,  that  it  was  left  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  local  banks.  Jefferson,  the  author  of  the  Decla- 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.         221 

ration  of  Independence,  raised  his  voice  against  the  curse  of 
the  local  banks,  which  were  allowed  to  come  into  being  by 
the  neglect  of  the  Government  in  the  performance  of  its 
duty,  and  in  the  payments  of  its  debt  in  some  form  or  shape. 
The  Government  should  have  given  to  the  country  a  steady 
currency  it  so  much  needed,  and  which  the  people  had  every 
reason  to  hope  for  and  expect ;  because  all  the  Provinces 
had  been  in  the  habit,  for  a  number  of  years,  before  the 
Revolution,  of  issuing  what  was  then  known  as  Colonial 
Treasury  Notes ;  these  notes  were  made  receivable  by  the 
several  Provinces  for  taxes ;  and  anything  the  Government 
would  accept  for  taxes,  everybody  was  glad  to  take  in  ex- 
change for  every  other  kind  of  property.  These  Colonial 
notes,  being  adopted  by  all  the  Colonies,  led  to  an  unex- 
pected degree  of  prosperity,  so  great  that,  when  Franklin 
was  brought  before  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  and 
questioned  as  to  the  cause  of  the  wonderful  prosperity, 
growing  up  in  the  Colonies,  he  plainly  stated,  that  the  cause 
was  the  convenience  they  found  in  exchanging  their  various 
forms  of  labor  one  with  another  by  the  paper  money,  which 
had  been  adopted ;  that  this  paper  money  was,  not  only 
used  in  the  payment  of  taxes,  but  in  addition  it  had  been 
declared  legal  tender.  It  rose  2  and  3  per  cent,  above  the 
par  of  gold  and  silver,  as  everybody  preferred  its  use.  One 
of  its  advantages  was  its  security  against  theft,  as  it  could 
be  easily  carried  and  hidden,  on  account  of  its  having  no 
bulk,  as  all  kinds  of  specie  necessarily  must  have.  After 
Franklin  had  explained  this  to  the  British  Government  as 
the  real  cause  of  prosperity,  they  immediately  passed  laws, 
forbidding  the  payment  of  taxes  in  that  money  This  pro- 
duced such  great  inconvenience  and  misery  to  the  people, 
that  it  was  the  principal  cause  of  the  Revolution.  Afar 
greater  reason  for  a  general  uprising,  than  the  Tea  and 
Stamp  Act,  was  the  talcing  away  of  the  paper  money. 

One  of  the  best  business  lessons  of  my  life  I  learned 
some  sixty-five  years  ago,  at  the  time  of  what  was  then 
known  as  General  Jackson's  war  upon  the  United  States 


222  COIN  A1STD   PAPEE   CURRENCY. 

Bank.  I  thought,  that  I  saw,  as  did  General  Jackson,  the 
terrible  danger,  which  resulted  from  allowing  corporations 
to  control  the  money  of  the  country.  Even  in  the  hands  of 
a  good  man,  such  an  institution,  as  the  second  United  States 
Bank,  chartered  with  the  privilege  of  controlling  a  capital 
of  $38,000,000,  loaning,  as  it  did,  $4  in  paper  for  every 
dollar  it  controlled  by  its  charter.  That  bank  had  the  priv- 
ilege of  opening  a  branch  in  every  State,  with  authority  to 
issue  what  was  called  United  States  money,  based  upon  this 
charter,  which  was  actually  obtained  by  giving  $1,500,000 
to  the  Government,  and,  as  Mr.  Benton  says,  in  his  "  His- 
tory of  Thirty  Years  in  Congress,"  the  advocates  of  that 
bank  spent  $3,000,000  in  bribing  Senators,  members  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  and  editors  of  newspapers  for 
the  accomplishment  of  their  purpose,  etc 

The  ten  panics  in  the  money  market,  that  I  have  myself 
witnessed  have  been  brought  about  by  the  people  becoming 
dependent  for  their  business  operations  upon  bank  accom- 
modations, which  have  been  too  suddenly  withdrawn  from 
them,  so  that  they  have  had  to  make  the  most  heart-aching 
sacrifices  to  pay  the  banks,  etc.  .  .  As  I  now  recollect,  I  think 
that  even  a  barrel  of  flour  rose  to  the  price  of  $18. 

It  should  never  be  forgotten,  that  the  amount  of  notes, 
given  out  during  the  Rebellion,  were  declared  legal  dollars, 
every  one  of  them  ;  and  they  were  actually  paid  out  to  the 
soldier,  sailor,  farmer,  mechanic  and  laborer  as  legal  dollars 
for  all  the  forms  of  labor  and  property,  that  was  consumed 
and  used  in  the  prosecution  of  that  terrible  war.  This 
money,  so  spent  by  the  people's  Government,  was  the  price 
of  the  nation's  life,  and  should  be  regarded  as  the  best 
investment  ever  made  by  Congress.  Although  it  did  save 
the  nation's  life,  it  might  have  been  done  with  a  far  less 
amount  of  issue,  had  they  continued  to  guide  their  course  of 
legislation  by  the  advice  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  who  it  is  said 
framed  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  declared, 
that  the  taxing  power  was  amply  sufficient  to  meet  every 
possible  contingency,  and,  to  use  his  own  words  :  "  Treasury 


AND   PAPEE  CUKKENCY.  223 

notes  should  be  issued,  bearing  or  not  bearing  interest,  as 
the  case  might  arise  "  ;  and,  in  case  of  war,  should  be  issued 
without  interest,  but  still  made  positively  legal  dollars,  each 
dollar,  being  in  fact,  as  valid  as  a  legal  mortgage  on  the 
whole  property  of  the  country.  As  it  was  entirely  out  of 
the  power  of  the  people  to  pay  it  at  once,  a  necessary  and 
proper  law  should  have  been  passed,  making  the  amount  of 
money,  so  found  in  circulation  at  the  close  of  the  war,  the 
unfluctuating  measure  of  all  values  for  all  time  to  come ; 
that  it  should  never  be  allowed  to  increase  only  as  per 
capita,  with  the  increase  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  country. 
All  must  see,  that  a  currency,  so  issued  for  the  salvation 
of  the  country,  should  have  been  regarded  as  the  richest 
treasure  a  nation  could  possess,  and  if  its  purchasing  power 
had  never  been  interfered  with,  by  preventing  it  from  being 
accepted  in  payment  of  duties  on  imports  and  interest  on 
bonds,  this  money,  instead  of  being  less  in  value,  would 
always  have  had  a  preference  to  gold  and  silver,  as  it  actually 
was  with  the  Bank  of  Venice,  the  paper  circulation  of  which 
ran  through  a  period  of  more  than  500  years,  always  being 
of  greater  value  than  gold  and  silver,  and  even  was  Considered 
so  much  higher  in  value,  that  the  Government  had  to  pass  a 
law,  declaring  it  unlawful  for  any  man  to  take  more  than 
twenty  per  cent,  premium  on  this  paper  money.  During 
that  whole  period  of  500  years  of  Venetian  paper  money, 
there  is  no  account  of  any  panic  having  arisen  there  at  any 
time.  Their  credit  remained  perfectly  good,  until  their 
country  was  over-run  by  the  army  of  Bonaparte.  So  it 
would  be  found  with  the  Treasury  note  of  our  own  Govern- 
ment,  if  it  would  only  give  to  the  American  people  the 
simple  amount  of  legal  dollars,  actually  found  in  circulation 
at  the  close  of  the  war,  giving  a  return  for  every  dollar  of 
money,  paid  out  by  the  Government  to  the  people  for  value 
received.  Had  this  been  continued  with  the  unfluctuating 
measure  of  all  values,  thousands  of  millions  of  dollars  would 
have  been  saved  to  the  American  people,  which  have  now 
been  lost,  giving  us  instead  national  demoralization  as  a 


224  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

recompense  for  the  unconstitutional,  invalidating  financial 
laws,  that  have  been  passed.  It  must  be  apparent  to  all, 
when  the  knowledge  of  these  facts  comes  to  be  understood 
by  the  people,  and  when  they  come  to  be  fully  impressed 
with  the  cruel  injustice,  that  has  been  done  them  by  passing 
laws,  which  Secretary  Sherman  assured  them,  as  I  have  so 
often  published :  "  After  every  citizen  of  the  United  States 
had  conformed  his  business  to  the  use  of  that  money,"  and 
further  added :  "To  take  that  money  from  the  people  would 
be  an  act  of  folly  without  parallel  in  ancient  or  modern 
times."  He  further  assured  them  in  a  speech,  made  at 
Cincinnati,  "  that  this  money  could  not  be  taken  away  from 
the  people  without  bringing  upon  them  scenes  of  wretched- 
ness and  ruin,"  such  as  no  Senator  has  better  described  than 
himself.  In  the  face  of  all  these  facts,  which  must  have 
been  known  to  President  Hayes,  he  yielded  to  the  impor- 
tunities of  bankers  and  money  dealers,  and  vetoed  the  bill, 
that  had  been  passed  by  Congress  for  the  people's  protection. 
How  comprehensive  were  all  such  subjects  to  General  Gar- 
field,  when  he  declared  in  Congress :  "  Whoever  controls  the 
volume  of  currency  is  absolute  master  of  the  industry  and 
commerce  of  the  country" 

CORPORATIONS   DANGEROUS   IN  A  REPUBLIC. 

"  Corporations  are  fast  becoming  the  curse  of  modern  life. 
They  usurp  the  powers,  that  belong  of  right  to  the  com- 
munity and  its  Government,  and  actually  threaten  the  lib- 
erties of  the  people.  The  individual  capitalist  is  often,  if 
not  generally,  a  benefit  to  the  community.  He  respects  pub- 
lic opinion.  He  cares  for  the  approval  and  regard  of  his 
fellow-citizens.  He  has  human  sympathies  and  a  conscience. 
He  generally  uses  his  wealth  for  the  public  benefit  in  in- 
direct, if  not  in  direct  ways.  But,  when  he  combines  with 
other  capitalists  in  forming  a  corporation  for  special  objects, 
and  puts  his  money  in  it,  the  thing  he  helps  create  is  utterly 
destitute  of  personal  or  human  qualities,  and  is  often  man- 
aged in  absolute  disregard  of  the  rights,  the  interests,  the 


COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  225 

welfare  of  everybody  but  the  men,  who  own  and  operate  it. 
Every  individual,  who  has  a  hand  in  controlling  the  machine, 
feels  absolved  from  moral  responsibility  in  its  conduct.  If 
it  robs  other  people,  ruins  their  business,  injures  their  es- 
tates, it  is  none  of  his  concern  and  he  washes  his  hands  of 
personal  guilt. 

Americans  rejoice,  that  they  have  got  rid  of  kings  and 
lords ;  but  they  have  saddled  themselves  with  corporations, 
which  are  proving  to  be  harder  task-masters,  more  grinding 
and  heartless  despots,  than  any  of  the  old-world  tyrants. 
The  railway  and  mining  corporations,  in  Pennsylvania  to- 
day, are  more  despotic  and  cruel  in  their  dealings  with  their 
employees  and  more  utterly  indifferent  to  the  rights  of  the 
public  and  the  welfare  of  the  State,  than  any  European 
autocrat.  They  set  the  will  of  the  people  at  defiance,  and 
by  keeping  control  of  the  Legislature  and  putting  their  own 
creatures  in  the  State  offices,  they  compel  the  people  to 
obey  their  will.  New  York  has  an  experience  of  the  same 
thing  in  the  Central  and  Hudson  River  Railroad.  But  for 
the  Erie  Canal,  which  holds  the  freight  rates  on  the  rail- 
roads down  to  a  low  point  eight  months  in  the  year,  the 
business  of  New  York  City  would  be  at  the  mercy  of  this 
greedy  corporation,  which  puts  agents  and  attorneys  enough 
into  the  Legislature  to  carry  any  measure  it  asks  for,  and 
prevent  even  an  investigation  of  its  doings." 

The  laboring  part  of  the  community  are  coming  to  see 
the  cause  of  the  present  enslavement  to  the  national  debt, 
which  they  find  has  grown  out  of  a  cunningly  devised  sys- 
tem of  legislative  traps,  especially  calculated  to  ensnare  the 
weak  and  unsuspecting  part  of  men,  and  by  that  means  draw 
from  them  a  large  part  of  the  products  of  their  labor,  with- 
out giving  them  any  substantial  equivalent  in  any  form  of 
usefulness  in  exchange  for  all  the  varied  products  of  their 
industry.  These  things  have  grown  up  in  our  community 
to  be  a  vast  monied  oligarchy,  that  now  feels  its  power  to 
be  so  great  as  to  control  both  the  State  and  the  National 
Government  in  their  own  interest.  This  is  what  the  fathers 
15 


226  COIN  AND  PAPER   CURRENCY. 

and  founders  of  our  country  foresaw  might  happen,  when 
Governments  would  become  currupt  and  adopt  means  of  op- 
pressing the  laboring  portion  of  the  community. 

When  a  course  of  systematic  oppression  has  been  per- 
sisted in  by  the  Government,  so  as  to  establish  the  fact, 
that  the  governing  are  determined  on  making  it  a  despotism, 
it  is  then  the  duty  of  the  people,  as  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence says,  to  believe,  "  That  all  men  are  created  equal ; 
that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalien- 
able rights ;  that  among  these  rights  are  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness  ;  that  to  secure  these  rights  Gov- 
ernments are  instituted  among  men,  deriving  their  just  pow- 
ers from  the  consent  of  the  governed ;  that  whenever  any 
form  of  Government  becomes  destructive  of  these  ends,  it 
is  the  right  of  the  people  to  alter  or  abolish  it,  and  to  insti- 
tute a  new  Government,  laying  its  foundations  on  such  prin- 
ciples, and  organizing  its  powers  in  such  form,  as  to  them 
shall  seem  most  likely  to  affect  their  safety  and  happiness. 
All  experience  has  shown,  that  mankind  are  more  disposed 
to  suffer,  while  evils  are  sufferable,  than  to  right  themselves 
by  abolishing  the  forms,  to  which  they  are  accustomed," 
but  when  (as  it  happened  within  the  last  eighteen  years)  "  a 
long  train  of  abuses  and  usurpations,  pursuing  invariably  the 
same  object,  evinces  a  desire  to  reduce  them  under  absolute 
despotism,  it  is  their  right,  it  is  their  duty,  to  throw  off  such 
Government  and  to  provide  new  guards  for  their  future  se- 
curity." Such  has  been  the  patient  sufferance  of  the  peo- 
ple. With  the  unconstitutional  financial  laws,  that  have 
been  passed  since  1863,  it  has  become  apparent  to  the  thought- 
ful part  of  the  laboring  portion  of  our  country,  that  the 
cause  of  their  financial  sufferings  has  grown  out  of  a  course 
of  financial  laws,  which,  as  I  see  it,  has  been  in  open  viola- 
tion of  the  very  first  injunction  of  the  Constitution,  which 
declares,  that  Congress  shall  establish  justice,  as  the  only 
possible  means,  by  which  liberty  and  life  can  be  successfully 
protected  against  the  avarice  and  cunning  of  those  who  "  lie 
in  wait  to  deceive." 


COIN  AND   PAPEE  CTTKKENCY.  227 

For  my  own  part  I  feel  a  great  deal  of  alarm  on  account 
of  the  long  persistence  of  this  train  of  evils  and  the  con- 
sequences, which  will  naturally  grow  out  of  them,  and 
which,  unless  carefully  dealt  with,  by  giving  back  tot  the 
people  some  evidence,  clear  and  substantial,  that  the  Gov- 
ernment is  determined  to  protect  their  rights  and  give 
them  such  relief  as  their  rights  demand,  there  will  be  every 
reason  to  regret  it.  Unless  this  protection  is  given  by  the 
Government,  we  cannot  but  fear,  that  the  great  body  of  la- 
boring people,  who  find,  that  they  have  been  literally  legis- 
lated into  an  enslavement  of  a  bonded  debt,  it  will  not  be 
much  longer  patiently  borne.  It  will  be  the  part  of  wisdom 
of  the  American  Government  to  take  measures,  as  soon  as 
possible,  to  show  their  determination  to  give  back  to  the 
American  people  in  the  most  convenient  form,  in  which  it 
can  now  be  done,  the  amount  of  money,  wrongfully  taken 
from  them,  for  which  they  have  given  their  lives  and  their 
property  of  every  description  during  the  whole  course  of  the 
late  terrible  war,  and  in  which  they  had  then  taken  their 
pay,  the  Government  declaring  it  to  be  legal  and  allowing 
it  to  be  circulated  for  so  many  years;  its  amount  was. so 
great,  that  it  would  have  bought  and  sold  the  value  of  the 
whole  property  of  the  country  many  times  over.  Secretary 
Sherman,  when  in  the  Senate  in  1869,  declared  the  truth, 
when  he  said,  that  every  American  citizen  had  conformed 
his  business  to  the  legal  tender  use  of  that  money,  and  that 
the  scenes  of  wretchedness  and  ruin  must  come  to  the 
American  people,  if  the  Government  should  take  that  money 
out  of  circulation,  which  it  so  wrongfully  did,  both  as  to 
small  and  large  paper  currency,  and  converted  the  whole 
amount,  so  taken  from  the  American  people,  into  a  national 
bonded  debt. 

This  course  of  financial  policy  has  been  so  long  insisted 
upon,  during  and  since  the  late  war,  that  it  must  inevitably 
attract  the  attention  of  the  toiling  masses,  who  will  see, 
that  they  have  the  power  of  numbers,  at  any  time  when 
they  will  it,  to  change  this  Government  so  as  to  make  it 


228  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

conform  to  the  positive  requirements  of  the  Constitution 
and  the  laws,  authorized  by  it.  We  must  hold  to  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  Constitution  as  the 
sheet  anchor  of  our  American  hope  for  the  continuance  of 
the  freedom  and  independence  of  our  whole  country.  When 
all  hope  is  blasted  by  continued  oppression,  it  needs  no 
prophet  to  foresee  what  will  be  possible  and  certain  in  the 
ruin,  that  must  come.  We  may  learn  from  the  prediction 
of  an  old  Boston  gentleman,  who  wrote  to  me  :  "  When  all 
the  boiling  passions  of  the  American  people  are  wrought 
up  against  each  other,  there  are  no  people  in  the  world,  that 
will  carry  destruction  to  such  a  pitch  as  it  will  then  be  car- 
ried by  the  American  people." 

All  this  terrible  possibility  01  ruin  and  destruction,  it  is 
now  in  the  power  of  Congress  to  avert.  It  will  require 
nothing  more  than  to  refuse  the  rechartering  of  the  banks, 
deceitfully  styled  national,  and  a  course  of  just  and  equit- 
able financial  laws,  which  will  show  the  whole  country,  that 
the  Government  is  now  determined  to  establish  justice  and 
carry  the  laws  into  execution  in  accordance  with  the  Consti- 
tution. These  laws  should,  as  I  have  said,  give  back  at  once 
to  the  people  in  some  form,  that  will  most  conveniently  ex- 
tinguish the  debt,  and  provide,  as  the  English  Government 
has  done,  for  the  savings  of  the  common  people  by  a  Postal 
Savings  Bank,  which  will  furnish  money  to  the  Government 
for  all  its  purposes,  by  taking  up  the  unoccupied  money  of 
the  country,  the  profits  of  which  now  go  into  the  national 
banking  system.  To  accomplish  all  this  it  is  only  necessary 
to  furnish  the  laboring  classes  a  convenient  method  of  safely 
depositing  their  unoccupied  money  at  a  low,  but  reasonable 
rate  of  interest.  When  the  national  bonds  have  been  paid 
off,  and  the  money  returned  to  the  people,  who  now  own  it, 
they  will  find  it  necessary  to  look  for  honest  and  trustworthy 
persons,  to  whom  this  money  can  be  loaned,  which  will  not 
be  like  loans  from  a  bank,  that  demands  a  return  of  it  every 
thirty,  sixty,  ninety  days  and  four  months ;  but  it  will  be 
loaned  to  responsible  persons,  who  will  use  it  to  commence 


COIN  AND  PAPEK  CUKKENCY.  229 

some  profitable  business,  allowing  them  to  keep  up  the  in- 
terest and  pay  the  principal  at  their  convenience,  when  it 
will  be  reloaned  to  some  enterprising  mechanic  or  working- 
man,  who  can  make  a  profitable  use  of  it,  and  the  longer  he 
keeps  it  and  continues  to  pay  the  interest  promptly,  the  bet- 
ter the  owner  of  the  money  will  be  pleased  with  the  arrange- 
ment. Such  a  method  of  loaning  money  tends  to  the  moral 
and  physical  improvement  of  the  whole  country. 

It  is  now  known  to  nearly  all  throughout  the  country,  that 
large  bodies  of  workingmen  are  united  in  various  forms  of 
organization,  called  Labor  Associations,  for  their  mutual 
protection  and  benefit.  This,  it  must  be  seen,  will  render  it 
easy  for  them  to  settle  upon  some  plan  of  operation,  which 
they  may  find  indispensable  to  their  safety  and  happiness, 
and  in  strict  accordance  with  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence and  the  Constitution,  to  unite  in  a  positive  demand 
upon  the  Government  for  such  relief  as  they  may  feel  to  be 
their  right,  their  duty,  and  indespensable  to  their  future 
welfare.  It  is  now  absolutely  necessary,  that  this  Govern- 
ment, being  Republican  in  form,  should  make  itself  a  pater- 
nal Government ;  otherwise  it  cannot  long  exist. 

When  we  found  it  necessary  to  make  large  payments  in 
coin,  we  realized  the  great  danger,  as  well  as  labor,  in  carry- 
ing it  from  one  city  or  State  to  another.  The  people  all  over 
our  country  sustained  a  great  loss,  when  they  had  to  give  up 
the  small  paper  currency,  'that  had  been  authorized  and 
circulated  to  the  amount  of  some  $60,000,000.  It  was  a  very 
great  convenience  and  saved  much  time  and  labor  in  various 
ways  to  make  payments  by  letter  or  otherwise  with  this  cur- 
rency, and  this  great  privilege  was  in  the  hands  of  all  classes 
of  people ;  and  how  it  could  have  been  so  shamefully  -with- 
drawn, without  a  petition  being  sent  to  Congress  from  the 
masses,  without  giving  them  any  voice  or  expression,  is  more 
than  I  can  conceive  of.  I  do  not  see  how  any  one  could 
have  been  found  to  commit  so  great  an  outrage,  as  taking 
this  currency  out  of  circulation,  when  it  was  without  cost  to 
either  the  Government  or  people,  and  this  $60,000,000  of 


230  COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

small  paper  currency  was  converted  into  a  national  debt,  and 
the  toiling  masses  have  been  called  upon  to  pay  the  interest 
on  it  from  that  day  to  the  present,  which  must  be  continued 
through  all  coming  time,  until  the  debt  is  paid,  which  pay- 
ment is  constantly  being  resisted  by  the  2,300  chartered 
banks,  that  desire  this  debt  to  remain  as  a  means  of  continu- 
ing their  banking  privileges.  More  than  this,  it  is  now  found 
that  $10,000,000  of  the  small  paper  currency  has  never  come 
in,  and,  therefore,  if  it  had  been  issued  by  the  bankers,  they 
would  have  had  the  $10,000,000,  besides  the  interest  they 
now  have  by  taking  the  money  of  the  Government  at  one 
per  cent.,  and  loaning  it  out  at  from  six  to  fifteen  per  cent., 
all  of  which  is  a  loss  to  the  toiling  masses  of  the  American 
people,  and  all  this  in  the  place  of  the  admirable  currency, 
that  we  had  at  the  close  of  the  war,  for  which  the  people 
had  given  labor  and  property  for  every  dollar,  found  in  cir- 
culation at  that  time. 

To  allow  the  profit,  accruing  from  the  loss  and  mutilation 
of  over  $800,000,000  of  currency  to  go  to  the  chartered 
banks,  instead  of  the  people,  would  be  very  wrong.  I  doubt 
whether  any  Representative,  now  in  Congress,  would  cast 
his  vote  for  re-chartering  them,  if  he  considered,  that  his 
vote  might  give  $50,000,000,  which  are  about  the  loss  and 
mutilation  of  $300,000,000  in  circulation,  to  say  nothing  of 
from  six  to  fifteen  per  cent,  other  banking  profits,  all  of 
which  belong  to  the  nation  and  cannot  be  constitutionally 
given  away  by  Congress.* 

Government  should  at  the  earliest  opportunity  create  a 
currency,  based  on  the  property  of  the  nation,  reserving 
gold  merely  for  foreign  exchanges,  so  that  speculators  could 
not  interfere  with  it.  The  people  are  now  used  to,  and  pre- 
fer a  national  paper  currency  from  a  ten  cent,  to  a  one  hun- 
dred dollar,  bill ;  there  is  no  reason  why  they  should  not 
have  it,  being  their  only  salvation  from  knavishly  contrived 

*  This  article  of  26  pages,  in  pamphlet  form,  was  sent  to  every  member 
of  Congress,  yet  they  re-chartered  these  banks  ?  The  reason  why  must  oc- 
cur to  every  thoughtful  mind. 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  231 

periodic  gold  panics  by  holders  of  gold  in  our  own  and  for- 
eign countries,  etc.     .     .     . 

All  this  will  show,  that  our  present  system  of  National 
Banks  is  a  moneyed  power,  which  is  more  able  to  inflict  on 
the  American  people  the  greatest  possible  amount  of  suffer- 
ing, like  that  which  is  now  passing  the  real  estate  of  our 
country  rapidly  out  of  the  hands  of  the  many  into  the  pos- 
session of  the  few,  which  will  soon  produce  here  a  state  of 
things  like  that,  which  has  caused  murder  and  bloodshed  in 
Ireland,  and  is  now  spreading  to  the  Isle  of  Skye  in  Scot- 
land. 

The  moneyed  interests  of  our  country  have  taken  the 
place  of  the  enslaving  power,  that  brought  on  the  late  de- 
structive war,  and  it  needs  but  little  perception  to  see  and 
judgment  to  know,  that  this  potent  power  in  our  land,  aided 
by  capitalists  in  Europe,  has  introduced  and  carried  out 
measures,  that  have  literally  enslaved  the  millions  of  inhab- 
itants, who  have  nothing  to  sell  but  their  own  labor.  They 
are  now  left  at  the  mercy  of  their  employers,  who  get  their 
labor  for  the  smallest  consideration,  for  which  it  can  be  ob- 
tained ;  then  by  the  vacillating  and  changeable  moneyed 
power,  that  has  been  created  by  our  Government,  enabling 
certain  classes  of  men,  banks  and  corporations  without  souls, 
to  expand  and  contract  the  circulating  medium  in  use 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  our  country,  to  such 
a  degree  as  periodically,  once  in  some  seven  or  ten  years,  to 
bring  about  a  panic,  causing  such  pressure  and  general  ruin, 
as  to  throw  all  of  these  poor  people  out  of  employment,  and 
leave  them  worse  off,  than  were  the  slaves  at  the  South, 
many  of  whom  had  good  masters  to  take  care  of  them.  All 
this  devastation  to  the  millions  has  been  wrought  by  the  in- 
fluence of  banks  and  moneyed  corporations,  created  by  spe- 
cial, partial  and  unconstitutional  class  legislation. 

Our  rulers  made  the  same  mistake  the  English  Govern- 
ment made,  in  taking  away  from  the  people  their  paper 
money,  and  making  what  was  left  subject  to  be  redeemed  in 
gold  and  silver.  All  this  was  done  after  the  warning  of 


232         COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY. 

Sir  Archibald  Alison,  who  so  distinctly  stated,  that  he  hoped 
the  American  Government  would  not  make  such  a  mistake 
as  did  Great  Britain,  which  he  declared  had  brought  upon 
them  a  greater  amount  of  suffering  in  their  efforts  to  get 
specie  payments,  than  had  been  occasioned  by  all  the  wars 
and  all  the  terrors  of  pestilence  and  famine,  that'  had  fallen 
upon  them.  Our  Government  would  not  learn  by  the  ex- 
perience of  other  powers,  but  yielded  to  the  importunities 
of  banks  and  bankers,  thus  forcing  our  country  through  a 
similar  scene  of  suffering,  wretchedness  and  ruin  since  1863, 
costing  thousands  of  millions  of  dollars  in  the  lessened  value 
of  property,  and  taking  away  the  national  currency  in  cir- 
culation at  the  close  of  the  war,  for  which  full  value  had 
been  given,  even  to  the  very  last  dollar,  as  I  have  so  often 
said.  .  .  . 

President  Madison,  in  his  message  of  December  3,  1816, 
said  : 

"  But  for  the  interests  of  the  community  at  large,  as  well 
as  for  the  purpose  of  the  Tressury,  it  is  essential,  that  the 
nation  should  possess  a  currency  of  equal  value,  credit,  and 
use  wherever  it  may  circulate.  The  Constitution  has  in- 
trusted Congress  exclusively  with  the  power  of  creating  and 
regulating  a  currency  of  that  description,"  etc.  .  .  . 

Webster  said : 

"  When  all  our  paper  money  is  made  payable  in  specie  on 
demand,  it  will  prove  the  most  certain  means,  that  can  be 
used  to  fertilize  the  rich  man's  field  by  the  sweat  of  the 
poor  man's  brow. 

"  The  producing  cause  of  all  prosperity  is  labor !  labor ! ! 
labor ! ! !  The  Government  was  made  to  protect  this  indus- 
try, and  to  give  it  both  encouragement  and  security.  To 
this  very  end,  with  this  precise  object  in  view,  power  was 
given  to  Congress  over  the  money  of  the  country." 

He  predicted  that  conditions,  which  permitted  the  rapid 
accumulation  of  property  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  remit- 
ting the  masses  to  poverty,  would  soon  destroy  free  institu- 
tions. 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY.  233 

Benton  said : 

•"  The  Government  ought  not  to  delegate  this  power,  if  it 
could.  It  was  too  great  a  power  to  be  trusted  to  any  bank- 
ing company  whatever,  or  to  any  authority  but  to  the  high- 
est and  most  responsible,  which  was  known  to  our  form  of 
Government.  The  Government  itself  ceases  to  be  inde- 
pendent, it  ceases  to  be  safe,  when  the  national  currency  is 
at  the  will  of  a  company.  The  Government  can  undertake 
no  great  enterprise,  neither  of  war  nor  peace,  without  the 
consent  and  co-operation  of  that  company;  it  cannot  count 
its  revenues  for  six  months  ahead  without  referring  to  the 
action  of  that  company,  its  friendship  or  its  enmity,  its  con- 
currence or  its  opposition,  and  see  how  far  that  company 
will  permit  money  to  be  scarce  or  to  be  plentiful,  how  far 
it  will  let  the  money  system  go  on  regularly  or  throw  it  into 
disorder,  how  far  it  will  suit  the  interest  or  policy  of  that 
company  to  create  a  tempest  or  suffer  a  calm  in  the  moneyed 
ocean.  The  people  are  not  safe,  when  such  a  company  has 
such  a  power.  The  temptation  is  too  great,  the  opportunity 
too  easy  to  put  up  and  put  down  prices,  to  make  and  to 
break  fortunes,  to  bring  the  whole  community  upon  its  knees 
to  the  Neptunes,  who  preside  over  the  flux  and  reflux  of 
paper.  All  property  is  at  their  mercy." 

General  Jackson : 

"  I  submit  to  the  wisdom  of  the  Legislature,  whether  a 
national  one  [currency],  founded  upon  the  credit  of  the 
Government  and  its  resources,  might  not  be  devised,  which 
would  obviate  all  constitutional  difficulties  and,  at  the  same 
time,  secure  all  advantages  to  the  Government  and  the  coun- 
try, that  were  expected  to  result  from  the  present  bank." 

John  Earl  Williams,  President  of  the  Metropolitan  Bank  : 

"  I  would  suggest,  that  Congress  assume,  at  once,  the  in- 
herent sovereign  prerogative  of  a  Government  *  of  the  peo- 
ple, by  the  people,  and  for  the  people,'  and  exercise  it,  by 
furnishing  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States  with  a 
uniform  national  currency.  Surely  the  people,  and  the  peo- 
ple only  have  a  natural  right  to  all  the  advantages,  emolu- 


234  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

merit  or  income,  that  may  inure  from  the  issue  of  either 
$1,000  bonds  with  interest,  or  $10  notes  without,  based  on 
the  faith  and  credit  of  the  nation,"  etc.  .  .  .  . 

This  principle,  simple,  clear,  and  undeniable,  ought  to  be 
recognized  as  fundamental,  and  the  only  safe  and  proper 
basis,  on  which  may  securely  rest  all  the  circulating  medium 
of  the  country,  for  the  sole  benefit  of  all  the  people  and  not, 
as  now,  for  the  profit  of  a  class  of  stockholders,  however  de- 
serving they  may  be  in  all  other  respects. 

To  carry  into  effect  this  principle — to  substitute  United 
States  notes  for  bank  notes — take  away,  as  soon  as  prac- 
ticable, and  for  ever,  all  circulation  from  banks. 

They  would  do  a  strictly  legitimate  business  as  banks  of 
discount  and  deposit,  knowing,  that  whatever  leads  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  whole  people  must  be  beneficial  to  the 
banks ;  but  leaving  the  right  where  it  belongs,  to  the  United 
States  Government,  to  supply  the  whole  circulating  medium 
of  the  country. 

In  this  connection,  we  must  remember,  that  banks  are  the 
creatures  of  law.  The  laws,  which  created  them,  may,  by 
virtue  of  rights  reserved,  be  amended,  altered  or  repealed. 

To  those,  who  are  disposed  to  complain  of  the  change  as 
a  hardship,  one  is  tempted  to  ask  what  natural  right  a  dozen 
stockholders  have  to  receive  notes  from  Government  to  circu- 
late, that  any  other  dozen  men  do  not  possess  ?  As  John 
Earl  Williams  was  an  eminent  banker,  his  opinion  must 
have  weight. 

Allow  me  to  repeat  F.  E.  Spinner's  experience  in  this  de- 
partment : 

"  I  had  made  up  my  mind  that,  when  I  left  the  Treasury, 
never  again  to  meddle  with,  or  even  think  of,  politics  or  of 
anything  in  any  way  connected  therewith,  and  to  seek  that 
peace  and  quiet  of  rnind  and  bodily  rest,  that  a  man  at  the 
age  of  seventy-three,  who  has  been  so  actively  engaged, 
mind  and  body,  for  more  than  half  a  century,  so  much  needs. 
But  it  now  seems  to  be  somewhat  doubtful,  whether  I  will 
be  able  to  carry  out  that,  resolve,  etc.  .  .  .  Educated  as 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  235 

t 

I  was  in  the  hard  money  school,  I  have  had  hard  work  to 
unlearn  what  I  was  taught  as  being  truism  in  political  econ- 
omy, and  to  rid  my  mind  from  preconceived  and,  as  I  now 
believe,  erroneous  ideas. 

"  My  experience  in  the  Treasury  has  been  to  ine  a  very 
practical  school,  and  I  must  have  been  blind  not  to  have  seen 
the  errors  of  the  popular  theories,  that  have  been  so  long 
accepted  as  settled  truths  by  the  various  commercial  people 
of  the  world,  etc.  ...  I  hope  to  live  yet  long  enough 
to  see  Congress  make  a  beginning  in  the  right  direction,  by 
passing  an  act,  authorizing  the  issue  of  a  bond,  bearing  a  low 
rate  of  interest,  that  can  at  the  will  of  the  owner,  be  at  any 
time  convertible  into  a  legal  tender  Government  note,  and 
the  note,  in  a  like  manner,  convertible  into  such  a  bond,  etc. 

.  .  .  Such  a  currency  would  at  all  times  adjust  itself 
to  the  exact  business  wrants  of  the  country,  and  therefore  a 
commercial  revulsion  would  be  next  to  impossible. 

"  This  once  accomplished  and  working,  as  you  and  I  be- 
lieve it  will  work,  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole  people,  other 
important  and  beneficial  reforms  would  soon  follow.  The 
Shylocks  foresee  all  this,  hence  their  fierce  opposition." 

Such  advice  from  a  patriot,  who  was  fifteen  years  United 
States  Treasurer  during  our  late  war,  speaks  volumes  in  favor 
of  greenbacks. 

In  spite  of  these  warnings,  littered  and  written  by  sages, 
statesmen,  and  financiers  from  Franklin,  Jefferson,  and  Web- 
ster to  Senator  Jones,  President  John  Earl  Williams,  and 
Treasurer  Spinner;  in  spite  of  the  seven  and  ten  yearly 
periodic  panics,  that  impoverished  our  farmers,  manufactur- 
ers, mechanics  and  laborers,  and  enriched  the  banks  and 
capitalists,  Secretary  Folger  and  Comptroller  Knox  seem  now 
inclined  to  advise  the  re-chartering  of  these  banks,  deceitfully 
called  national.  However,  it  is  consoling  to  read  in  rural 
patriotic  papers:  "The  people,  just  awaking  from  their 
lethargy,  and  beginning  to  comprehend  the  situation,  are 
rapidly  getting  into  position  to  assert  their  rights  in  Con- 
gress, and  compel  this  spurious  money  of  the  banks  to  retire. 


236 


COIN   AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 


The  irrepressible  conflict  is  fairly  under  way,  and  is  gather- 
ing momentum  every  day,  both  in  Congress  and  also  among 
the  people." 

This  looks  as  though  the  real  producers  in  this  great 
Eepublic  felt  the  necessity  of  raising  their  voice  against 
legislation,  that  favors  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many, 
which  is  contrary  to  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Constitution. 

Having  just  received  the  Congressional  Record,  of  March 
30,  1882,  containing  the  able  speech  of  the  Hon.  Eichard 
Warner,  M.C.,  of  Tennessee,  I  cannot  help  adding  the 
following  extract  from  his  wonderful  epitome  on  our  finan- 
ces and  monopolies  since  1860 : 

"Free  Governments  recognize  the  sovereignty  in  the 
people.  The  creation  of  moneyed  and  other  monopolies 
necessarily  extracts  from  the  people  their  sovereignty  in 
proportion  to  the  numbers  and  powers  of  the  corporations, 
and  shears  the  States  and  nation  of  that  much  sovereignty. 
These  are  the  hydra-headed  monsters,  that  sap  the  life- 
blood  and  destroy  the  very  foundation  of  the  Government 
— growing  in  size  and  strength  as  the  Government  departs 
from  its  original  purity,  and,  unless  checked  by  an  upheaving 
of  the  toiling  millions,  dwelling  on  the  hills  and  in  the 
valleys  of  the  great  agricultural  area  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  mechanical  and  manufacturing  laborers,  this  great 
and  glorious  sovereignty,  purchased  by  blood,  labor  and  toil, 
this  Government  of  the  people,  Heaven's  best  gift  to  the 
oppressed  of  all  lands,  will  sink  beneath  the  leaden  weight 
of  monopoly,  and  become  the  prey  of  oppressors  of  mankind." 

NATIONAL   BANKS. 

These  banks  are  very  expensive  to  the  people.  The  law 
of  their  creation  was  passed  February  25,  1863,  but  they  had 
no  circulation  in  that  year.  Their  circulation  was — 


In  1864 $  31,235,270 

In  1865 146,137,800 

In  1866 281,070,908 


In  1867 $290,625,379 

In  1868 299,762,855 

In  1869 299,929,625 


COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  237 


In  1870 $299,766,984 

In  1871 318,261,211 

In  1872 337,664,795 

In  1873 347,267,061 

In  1874 351,981,032 

In  1875 354,408,008 


In  1876 $332,998,306 

In  1877 317,048,872 

In  1878 324,514,284 

In  1879 329,691,697 

In  1880 343,834,167 


In  this  connection  Mr.  Warner  proves,  that  these  gras- 
ping institutions  have  made  out  of  the  people  the  enormous 
sum  #/"  $1,848,930,000  within  the  last  sixteen  years.  They 
have  not  been  satisfied  with  their  fabulous  profits,  but  have 
carried  on  litigation  to  be  exempt  from  State  taxation.  He 
further  observes  : 

"You  have  about  twenty-two  hundred  banking  corporations 
knocking  at  the  doors  of  Congress  to  re- charter  them  for  a 
period  of  twenty  or  thirty  years,  as  the  case  may  be,  and 
leaving  a  law  in  existence,  which  will  permit  the  chartering 
of  as  many  more  if  desired,  asking  to  allow  the  control  of 
the  currency  to  be  continued  in  corporate  bodies.  I  would 
favor  the  repeal  of  the  law  allowing  the  charter  of  national 
banks,  refuse  to  re-enact  them,  and  pass  a  law  winding  up 
national  banks  as  soon  as  their  charters  expired,  taking  from 
them  the  power  and  control  of  the  currency,  placing  it  back 
in  Congress,  where  the  Constitution  fixes  it.  The  Consti- 
tution creates  but  one  legislative  body,  and  rests  in  that 
body  the  sole  and  exclusive  legislative  power.  There  is  no 
clause  in  the  Constitution,  that  gives  Congress  the  power  to 
delegate  legislative  power  to  any  other  body.  It  alone  can 
exercise  such  power.  If  Congress  has  the  power  to  give  or 
delegate  to  banking  corporations  power  and  control  over  the 
currency  to  the  exclusion  of  itself,  by  parity  of  reasoning 
could  they  not  delegate  and  give  to  railroad  corporations 
the  power  and  control  over  commerce  ?  " 


238 


COIN  AND   PAPEE   CTJKKENCY. 


Tabular  Statement  of  the  United  States  Debt,  under  a 
Government  of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the 
people,  from  1791  to  1860 : 


Year. 

Amount. 

Year. 

Amount. 

1791 

$75,463476  52 

1826  

$81,054,059  99 

1792 

77,227,924  66 

1827  

73,987,357  20 

1793  ...  . 

80,352,634  04 

1828  

67,475,043  87 

1794:  .... 

78,427,404  77 

1829  . 

58,421,413  67 

1795  .  .  . 

80,747,558  39 

1830  

48,565,406  50 

1796  

83,762,172  07 

1831  

39,123,191  68 

1797  

82,064,479  33 

1832  

24,322,235  18 

1798  

79,228,529  12 

1833  

7,001,698  83 

1799  

78,408669  77 

1834  

4,760,082  08 

1800  

82,976,294  35 

1835  

37,513  05 

1801  

83,038,050  80 

1836  

336,957  83 

1802*  

86,712,632  25 

1837  

3,308,124  07 

1803  

77,054,686  30 

1838  

10,434,221  14 

1804:  

86,427,120  88 

1839  

3,573,343  82 

1805  

82.312,150  50 

1840 

5  250,875  54 

1806  

75,723,270  66 

1841  

13,594,480  73 

1807  

69,218,398  64 

1842  

20,601,226  28 

1808  

65,196,317  97 

1843  

32742,922  00 

1809  

57,023,192  09 

1844  

23,461,652  50 

1810  

53,173,217  52 

1845  

15,925,303  01 

1811  

48,005,587  76 

1846  

15  550,202  97 

1812  

45,209,737  90 

1847  

38,826,534  77 

1813  

55,962,827  57 

1848  

47,044,862  23 

1814  

81,487,846  24 

1849  

63,061,858  69 

1815  

•  99,833,660  15 

1850  

63,452,773  55 

1816  

127,334,933  74 

1851  

68,304,796  02 

1817  

123,491,965  16 

1852.  ... 

66,199.341  71 

1818  

103,466,633  83 

1853  

59,803,117  70 

1819  

95,529,648  28 

1854 

42  242  222  42 

1820  

91,015,566  15 

1855 

35  586  858  56 

1821  

89,987,427  66 

1856 

31  972  537  90 

1822  

93,546,676  98 

1857 

28  699  831  85 

1823  

90,875,877  28 

1858.. 

44911,881  03 

1824:  

90,269,777  77 

1859  

58,496,837  88 

1825  

83,788,432  71 

COIN   AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 


239 


In  this  table  may  be  seen,  that  the  founders  and  states- 
men of  this  free  country  reduced  the  debt  of  $75,000,000. 
in  1791  to  $37,000  in  1835,  and  only  allowed  it  to  reach 
$58,000,000  in  1859  ;  hence  they  could  not  see  any  blessing 
in  a  national  debt. 

Tabular  Statement  of  the  United  States  Debt,  under  a, 
Government  of  bankers  and  monopolists,  by  bankers  and 
monopolists  and  for  bankers  and  monopolists,  from  1860 
to  1881  / 


Year. 

Amount. 

Year. 

Amount. 

1860  .... 

$64,842,287  88 

1871.... 

$2,353,211,332  32 

1861  .... 

90,580,873  72 

1872.... 

2,253,251,328  78 

1862  .... 

524,176,412  13 

1873.... 

2,234,482,993  20 

1863  .... 

1,119,772,138  63 

1874.... 

2,251,690,468  43 

1864  .... 

1,815,784,370  57 

1875.... 

2,232,284,531  95 

1865  .... 

2,680,647,869  74 

1876.... 

2,180,395,067  15 

1866  .... 

2,773,236,173  69 

1877.... 

2,205,301,392  10 

1867  .... 

2,678,126,103  87 

1878.... 

2,256,205,892  53 

1868  .... 

2,611,687,851  19 

1879.... 

2,245,495,072  04 

1869  

2,588,452,213  94 

1880.... 

2,120,415,370  63 

1870  .... 

2,480,672,427  81 

1881.... 

2,000,000,000  00 

In  this  table  may  be  perceived  the  machinations  of  poli- 
ticians, bankers  and  monopolists,  whose  deceitful  motto  has 
been  :  "  A  national  debt  is  a  national  blessing,"  hence  they 
increased  that  debt  from  $64,000,000  to  $2,000,000,000,  and 
funded  it  for  their  own  benefit,  so  as  to  make  it  consciously 
or  unconsciously  a  stepping-stone  for  some  ambitious  dic- 
tator, Cassar  or  Napoleon,  unless  the  people  assert  their 
rights.  Also  this  pertinent  remark  occurs  in  Mr.  Warner's 
able  speech,  summing  up  the  opinions  of  statesmen  and  the 
ideas  of  the  people  on  this  all-absorbing  subject : 

"  In  the  origin  of  our  Governments,  both  State  and  na- 
tional, a  public  debt  was  by  our  great  statesmen  held  as  a 
public  curse ;  perpetuities  were  regarded  as  slavish  and  de- 


240  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

structive  of  liberty ;  monopolies  and  great  moneyed  cor- 
porations as  dangerous  to  a  republican  form  of  Govern- 
ment; but  now  and  for  the  last  twenty  years  the  great  mass 
of  the  legislation  has  been  and  is  to  give  them  more  power, 
lend  them  more  strength,  and  to  extort  from  the  people, 
upon  whose  shoulders  all  the  burdens  of  Government  rest, 
their  substance. 

"  The  rich  of  the  world  are  wedded  to  gold,  the  poor  to 
silver  and  paper  money.  It  is  to  the  interest  of  the  rich 
and  moneyed  kings  to  demonetize  silver  and  Treasury  notes 
and  make  gold  the  sole  currency,  because  they  own  the 
gold.  Hence  the  reason  of  the  Conference  between  the 
moneyed  powers  of  the  United  States,  England,  France 
and  Germany,  that  brought  about  the  act  demonetizing  sil- 
ver in  1872,  which  was  repealed  in  1878.  It  is  well  demon- 
strated and  sufficiently  proved,  that  two  things  are  lodged 
in  the  people's  hearts :  First,  they  will  not  have  silver  de- 
monetized ;  second,  they  will  have  a  paper  circulating  me- 
dium. Money  is  the  great  lever  and  moving  power  of  all 
nations  in  war  and  in  peace.  And  when  the  control  over  it 
is  vested  in  corporations,  they  can  wield  the  nation  with  as 
much  power  as  the  Czar  of  Kussia,  etc.  .  .  . 

"  I  can  now  see  the  cloud  of  death  upon  liberty,  and  fully 
realize  the  warning  words  of  Washington — the  first  in  war, 
the  first  in  peace,  and  the  first  in  the  hearts  of  his  coun- 
trymen— in  his  Farewell  Address :  '  I  conjure  you,  my  coun- 
faymen,  to  beware  of  the  insidious  wiles  of  a  foreign  in- 
fluence? " 

I  cannot  help  expressing  my  heartfelt  thanks  to  Mr. 
Warner  for  his  bold  and  instructive  discourse  on  our  finan- 
cial system  for  the  last  sixteen  years.  I  hope  his  noble 
efforts  will  be  endorsed  by  the  people,  who  will  rise  in  their 
might  to  prevent  a  recharter  of  these  grasping  institutions. 

I  will  express  with  the  fewest  possible  words  the  nation's 
wants. 

If  Congress  will  now  withdraw  the  present  volume  of 
bank  notes,  which  have  been  given  as  a  subsidy  to  the 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CURRENCY.  241 

banks,  and  issue  an  equal  volume  of  Treasury  notes,  made 
receivable  for  all  forms  of  taxes,  duties  and  debts,  and  use 
these  Treasury  notes  to  cancel  the  bonded  debt,  now  pay- 
able, or  restore  our  decaying  commerce  and  provide  cheap 
transportation  for  the  people,  it  will  give  us  a  national  cur- 
rency as  a  measure  of  value,  as  uniform  and  unfluctuating 
as  that  of  the  yard  stick  or  pound  weight. 

Congress  should  not  adjourn,  until  it  has  established  a 
Postal  Savings  Bank,  by  which  the  Government  should  re- 
ceive on  deposit  the  savings  of  the  people  at  a  low  rate  of 
interest,  say  two  and  a  half  per  cent.,  or  $3.65. 

Millions  of  money,  which  are  now  lost  to  the  Government 
for  the  want  of  a  perfectly  safe  place  of  deposit,  would  be 
thus  loaned  to  the  Government.  With  these  savings  of  the 
people  the  Government  could  pay  off  the  large  bonded  in- 
debtedness. 

Congress  should  pass  a  law,  directing  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  to  use  the  surplus  of  the  $150,000,000,  to  pay  as 
much  of  the  national  debt  as  possible. 

Thus  the  money  of  the  country  would  flow  back  into  the 
channels  of  business  and  trade,  employ  labor  and  fill  the 
land  with  an  industrious,  thrifty  and  happy  people. 

It  would  relieve  the  toiling  masses  from  paying  interest 
on  money,  wrongly  taken  from  them  and  converted  into  a 
bonded  debt.  By  taking  this  course  it  would  place  the 
country  on  the  highest  pinnacle  of  prosperity,  and  would  en- 
sure the  promotion  of  the  general  welfare,  to  such  a  degree 
as  would  soon  make  our  country  a  Government,  which,  by  its 
prosperity  and  greatness,  would  be  the  envy  of  the  surround- 
ing nations  of  the  world. 

We  should  not  only  secure  internal  prosperity  and  tran- 
quility,  but  we  should  soon  find,  that  Mexico  would  be  knock- 
ing at  our  door  for  admittance  to  enjoy  the  blessings  of  so 
great  and  so  good  a  Government. 

To  maintain  such  a  Government,  it  will  be  necessary  to 
have  such  a  civil  service  as  would  cause  the  men,  holding 
office,  to  give  to  the  people  evidence,  that  they  are  both  cap- 
16 


242  COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUKKENCY. 

able  and  honest  in  performing  the  service,  required  by  the 
people. 

A  Government  with  such  a  civil  service,  maintained  by  all 
the  States,  furnishing  and  selecting  one  of  their  best  men 
from  each  and  every  State,  to  form  a  commission,  whose 
business  it  would  be  to  select,  appoint  and  watch  over  the 
acts  and  doinge  of  the  100,000  office  holders  of  the  country, 
who  were  appointed  by  the  general  Government  of  our  coun- 
try, and  who  are  now  under  the  present  political  manage- 
ment of  rings  and  cliques,  mainly  appointed  to  enable 
interested  parties  to  control  this  Government  of  ours  in 
their  own  particular  interest,  instead  of  giving  protection  to 
the  great  mass  of  people,  whom  they  were  appointed  to 
serve. 

If  Congress,  at  the  present  session,  would  legislate  to 
carry  out  the  suggestions  here  made,  we  should  have  an  in- 
dustrious, happy  and  prosperous  people.  There  would  be 
plenty  of  work  for  all  to  do,  and  at  good  wages  ;  the  rights 
of  the  laboring  classes  would  be  better  protected,  and  capi- 
talists, instead  of  living  on  usurious  interest,  would  use  their 
funds  to  employ  labor  in  developing  the  inexhaustible  re- 
sources of  our  great  and  growing  country. 

Even  in  Christ's  time  the  influence  of  money  had  crept 
into  the  very  Temple,  where  the  money-changers*  had  their 
tables,  which  so  greatly  aroused  the  just  indignation  of  the 
greatest  of  all  Reformers  the  world  ever  produced.  He  saw 
the  importance  of  making  an  example  of  them  on  the  very 
spot,  and  gave  us  the  only  evidence  in  His  pure  life  of  any 
temper ;  for  lie  then  "  made  a  scourge  of  small  cords,  and 
drove  the  money-changers  out  of  the  Temple,"  making  good 
the  declaration  of  Paul,  that  He  was  angry  without  sin. 

If  our  legislators  at  Washington  could  but  rise  now  to  the 
emergency  and  realize,  that  the  Constitution  (Article  L, 
Section  8,  5)  says:  "The  Congress  shall  have  power — To 
coin  money,  regulate  the  value  thereof,"  etc.  .  .  .  and 

*  Matt.  21 :  12  ;  Mark,  11 :  15 ;  John,  2  :  15  ;   Paul,  Eph.,  4  :  26. 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  243 

that  the  same  Constitution  has  no  clause,  allowing  them  to 
delegate  this  power — they  would  imitate  the  Master,  drive 
the  bankers  out  of  the  Capitol,  as  directed  by  the  law  of 
1793,  and  carry  out  Paul's  injunction:  "Be  ye  angry,  but 
sin  not,"  by  calmly  refusing  to  re-charter  banks,  deceitfully 
called  national,  disposed  to  appropriate  the  nation's  last 
dollar. 

PETER  COOPER. 

NEW  YOKE,  April  23,  1882. 
THE  HON.  EICHARD  WARNER. 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  I  cannot  refrain  from  offering  you  my 
heartfelt  thanks  for  the  noble  defence  you  made  of  the 
rights  and  interests  of  the  toiling  masses  of  this  great  and 
glorious  country, 

Yours,  with  great  respect, 

PETER  COOPER. 


WASHINGTON,  D.C.,  April  25,  1882. 
HON.  PETER  COOPER. 

DEAR  SIR  :  I  received  your  highly  complimentary  and 
well  appreciated  letter  and  pamphlet  yesterday.  Nothing 
offers  me  more  pleasure  than  to  know,  that  you  were  highly, 
pleased  with  my  speech  against  the  re-charter  of  national 
banks.  It  is  a  source  of  gratification  for  me  to  receive  a 
compliment  from  one,  whom  I  regard  the  greatest  friend  to 
the  people,  now  in  the  United  States,  and  an  intellect  sur- 
passed by  none.  I  hope,  if  it  be  within  your  power,  you 
will  send  me  a  number  of  copies  of  your  pamphlet,  contain- 
ing extracts  from  my  speech,  March  30,  1882.  I  will  take 
great  pleasure  in  circulating  them  in  my  Congressional  Dis- 
trict. Send  the  price  of  them  and  whatever  they  cost  I  wil] 
remit.  With 

True  respect, 

I  am  your  obedient  servant, 
RICHARD  WARNER. 


244  COIN   AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

A  EEVIEW  OF  COMPTROLLER  KNOX'S  KEPOKT. 

Comptroller  Knox  informs  us,  that  there  were  on  the 
1st  day  of  October,  1881,  2,132  National  Banks  in  the 
country,  etc. 

There  were  eighty-six  new  banks  organized  during  the 
year  ending  November  1,  1881. 

The  total  resources  of  these  banks  amount  to  $2,358,387- 
391,  etc.,  .  .  .  a  fund  of  $2,037,068,727  in  the  hands 
of  these  bankers,  on  which  they  pay  an  annual  tax  of  a  little 
over  $15,000,000,  which  is  less  than  the  half  of  one  per  cent, 
on  the  funds  in  their  hands. 

And  yet  the  Comptroller,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
the  President,  and  Congress  are  attempting  to  relieve  them 
from  a  part  of  the  tax  they  are  now  paying.  A  part  of  the 
Comptroller's  report  is  devoted  to  a  defence  of  the 
National  banking  system,  to  an  extension  of  their  charters, 
and  to  relieving  them  from  taxation.  What  other  class  of 
the  community  pay  so  small  a  tax  in  proportion  to  their 
means,  or  make  so  large  profits,  as  the  bankers.  We  know  of 
none,  except  it  be  some  of  the  leading  railroad  corporations. 

Between  the  railroad  and  the  bank  corporations,  the  pro- 
perty, produced  by  the  masses  of  the  people,  is  being  absorbed 
at  a  rapid  rate.  They  levy  contributions  upon  the  currency 
and  transportation  of  the  products  of  the  country,  that 
absorbs  the  largest  share  of  the  wealth  produced,  and  yet 
they  are  taxed  the  least.  But  the  efforts,  being  made  to 
remove  the  tax  from  bank  circulation  and  deposits,  are  not 
because  the  banks  feel  the  tax  oppressive,  but  because  they 
want  all  restrictions  to  the  increase  of  their  currency  re- 
moved. If  the  tax  was  removed  from  their  circulation, 
they  could  double  the  volume  of  their  notes,  etc.  .  .  . 

The  Comptroller  furnishes  figures  and  attempts  to  show : 
"  That  the  profit  on  bank  circulation  cannot  now  at  least 
be  said  to  be  excessive." 

He  is  very  careful,  however,  not  to  mention  the  source, 
from  which  bankers  can  derive  the  largest  profit,  and 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  245 

wherein  lies  their  greatest  power  for  good  or  evil ;  that  of 
increasing  and  diminishing  the  volume  of  money,  and  by 
that  means  inflating  and  contracting  prices.  The  profits, 
arising  to  those  engaged  in  banking  business,  do  not  de- 
pend entirely  upon  the  dividends,  semi-annually  declared 
upon  their  capital  stock.  Enormous  profits  are  secured  by 
taking  advantage  of  the  increase  and  decrease  of  prices  of 
property,  which  is  brought  about  by  inflating  and  contract- 
ing the  volume  of  currency,  etc.  ...  A  systematic  war 
was  made  by  banks  upon  legal  tender  notes ;  and  from  one 
to  four  millions  a  month  were  taken  from  circulation  and 
destroyed,  until  their  volume  was  reduced  from  $450,000,- 
000  to  $356,000,000,  when  the  panic  came  on.  The  panic 
became  so  disastrous  as  to  threaten  the  entire  prostration  of 
business,  and  in  order  to  prevent  this,  President  Grant's 
Administration  was  compelled  to  reissue  $26,000,000  of  the 
legal  tenders  to  relieve  the  pressure. 

]Sfo  sooner  was  a  temporary  relief  brought  about  by  the 
reissue  of  the  currency  destroyed,  than  John  Sherman  secured 
the  passage  by  Congress  of  his  Resumption  Bill,  the  object 
of  which  was  to  force  all  the  debtors  of  the  country,  who  had 
contracted  debts,  in  paper  currency,  to  pay  those  in  gold  coin. 
A  bill  was  passed,  demonetizing  silver,  and  to  resume  specie 
payments,  and  by  this  means  legal  tender  notes  were  gradu- 
ally to  be  destroyed,  and  bank-notes  issued  to  be  put  in  their 
places,  and  all  debts  made  legally  payable  in  gold. 

These  legislative  enactments,  by  which  the  debtors  of  the 
country  were  bankrupted  and  stripped  of  their  money  and 
property,  for  the  benefit  of  money  lenders,  were  engineered 
by  banks  for  the  purpose  of  getting  rid  of  Government  notes, 
and  to  give  them  the  entire  control  of  the  volume  of  cur- 
rency, thus  enabling  them  to  carry  on  their  schemes  of  in- 
flation and  contraction  as  a  perpetual  heir-loom  to  their  in- 
stitutions. 

The  President,  the  United  States  Treasurer,  the  Comp- 
troller, and  other  executive  officers,  and  the  majority  of  both 
Houses  of  Congress  aided  these  schemes,  and  the  banks,  are 


246  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

now  attempting  through  these  parties  to  secure  a  re-charter 
of  their  corporations,  and  to  perpetuate  the  public  debt  in 
their  interests. 

The  Comptroller  goes  into  an  elaborate  defence  of  the 
National  banks  in  his  last  report.  He  becomes  a  sort  of  an 
Attorney  for  an  extension  of  their  charter  and  to  relieve 
them  from  taxation,  etc.  .  .  . 

The  banks  inserted  a  clause  in  the  Resumption  Act,  giving 
them  the  power  to  increase  their  circulation  to  more  than  five 
times  its  present  volume,  or  to  within  ten  per  cent,  of  the 
entire  bonded  debt,  and  under  existing  laws,  also,  they  can 
retire  the  entire  amount  of  their  circulation  at  their  pleasure. 
In  February,  1881,  in  order  to  defeat  a  bill  passed  by  Con- 
gress, depriving  them  of  the  power  to  thus  suddenly  contract 
and  expand  their  circulation,  they  retired  about  $18,000,000 
of  their  notes  in  a  few  days'  time.  We  all  know  the  disas^t- 
rous  effects  caused  by  that  act.  Had  not  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  come  to  the  rescue,  and  put  legal  tenders  in 
circulation  by  the  millions  in  exchange  for  bonds,  wide-spread 
business  disaster  would  have  followed.  The  business  interest 
of  this  country  must  not  be  left  at  the  mercy  of  men,  who 
would  thus  abuse  the  power,  placed  in  their  hands.  These 
banks  should  be  deprived  of  the  power  they  now  hold  over 
the  volume  of  currency. 

The  facts  and  figures  here '  given  are  mainly  taken  from 
the  reports  of  the  officers  of  the  Government,  and,  therefore, 
they  cannot  be  ignored  nor  set  aside  by  the  members  of  Con- 
gress. It  will  not  do  either  for  the  present  legislators  to  re- 
ject them.  The  men  now  in  Congress  have  it  in  their  power 
to  strangle  this  monopoly,  that  is  sucking  the  life-blood  out 
of  the  people.  Many  of  these  banks  have  now  about  out- 
lived their  legal  chartered  existence,  given  to  them  by  ignor- 
ant and  corrupt  legislators,  and  the  verdict  of  the  people  is — 
let  them  die.  This  Congress  should  pass  an  act  forever  pro- 
hibiting the  organizing  or  re-chartering  of  banks  of  issue.  A 
general  law,  authorizing  banks  of  deposit  and  discount,  by 
which  the  money  of  the  people  shall  be  made  secure,  is  de- 


COIN  AND  PAPEK  CURRENCY.  247 

sirable.  But  no  bank  should  be  allowed  to  issue  currency  or 
to  control  its  volume.  Why  should  the  Government  create 
money  and  give  it  to  rich  bankers  for  nothing  ?  The  legal 
tender  notes  were  issued  in  exchange- for  labor  and  property, 
given  to  the  Government  by  the  people,  who  received  them. 
The  bankers  have  given  nothing  of  value  to  the  Government 
for  the  $362,000,000  of  currency  they  have  received. 

The  amendment  to  Senator  Sherman's  bill,  offered  by  Sena- 
tor Plumb,  of  Kansas,  contains  some  of  the  best  features  in 
reference  to  the  currency  and  public  debt  of  any  bill  yet  pre- 
sented, that  we  have  seen.  It  could  be  improved  by  making 
the  coin  certificates  and  notes  it  provides  for  issuing,  a  legal 
tender  for  all  debts,  public  and  private.  Senator  Plumb's  bill, 
or  one  similar,  should  certainly  be  passed  by  this  Congress. 

As  suggested  in  my  letter  to  Senator  Beck,  if  Congress 
was  to  pass  a  bill  to  issue  $362,000,000  of  legal  tender  Trea- 
sury notes,  to  take  the  place  of  the  present  bank  currency, 
it  could  provide  the  labor  and  material  to  build  and  equip 
two  lines  of  railroads  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  ocean, 
and  place  fifty  first-class  iron  steamers  on  the  ocean,  thus 
providing  cheap  transportation  both  for  our  national  and 
international  commerce ;  and  it  would  leave  the  currency 
in  a  far  better  condition  than  it  is  now  in. 

Is  the  present  Congress  wise  enough  to  see,  appreciate, 
and  inaugurate  these  great  reforms  in  our  currency !  We 
ardently  hope  and  trust,  that  it  is,  and  will. 

The  facts  and  figures  here  given  may  be  verified  by  con- 
sulting the  late  reports  of  Comptroller  Knox  and  Treasurer 
Gilfillan.  They  are  submitted  with  the  ardent  hope,  that 
Congress  may  see  the  immeasurable  importance  of  our  pre- 
venting banks  of  issue,  and  of  providing  a  currency  of  Treas- 
ury notes  based,  as  they  should  be,  upon  the  embodied 
wealth  of  the  nation,  and  made  receivable  for  all  forms  of 
taxes,  duties  and  debts.  Such  a  currency  would  be  unfluct- 
uating in  volume  and  as  uniform  in  its  measuring  power  as 
the  yard-stick  and  pound  weight. 

PETER  COOPER. 


248  COIN  AND  PAPER   CURRENCY. 

UNITED  STATES  COMMITTEE  ON  AGRICULTURE. 

WASHINGTON,  D.C.,  May  3,  1882. 
HONORABLE  AND  DEAR  SIR: 

Owing  to  the  absence  of  both  myself  and  Secretary  for  a 
protracted  period  from  this  city,  your  kind  note  of  the  18th 
ult.  was  not  laid  before  me,  until  this  evening.  I  recognize 
the  importance  of  legislation  by  Congress  at  its  present 
Session  in  regard  to  the  currency,  and  I  desire  to  bring  to  my 
consideration  of  this  subject  all  the  light,  which  intelligent 
experience  in  matters  of  finance  can  afford  ;  and  I,  there- 
fore, beg  to  tender  you  my  thanks  for  a  copy  of  your  re- 
view of  report  of  the  Comptroller  Knox,  which  shall  have 
my  fullest  consideration. 

Yours  very  respectfully, 

WM.  MAHONE. 
HONORABLE  PETER  COOPER, 

9  Lexington  Avenue, 

New  York  City, 

K  Y. 


Petition  to  the  Honorable  Senate  and  Home  of  Representa- 
tives of  the  United  States. 
HONORED  GENTLEMEN  : 

Your  petitioner,  now  in  the  ninety- second  year  of  his  age, 
respectfully  prays,  that  the  present  Congress  may  not  ad- 
journ, until  they  have  made  the  necessary  and  proper  law, 
requiring,  that  all  banking  shall  in  future  be  carried  on 
with  United  States  Treasury  Notes,  receivable  for  all  forms 
of  taxes,  duties  and  debts,  both  public  and  private — and 
that,  after  the  expiration  of  the  charter  of  our  present  banks, 
no  paper  money  shall  ever  be  allowed  to  circulate  in  this 
country  in  excess  of  the  amount  of  the  people's  money,  act- 
ually found  circulating  as  the  currency  at  the  close  of  the 
war.  For  every  dollar  of  that  currency  the  people  had  given 
value  to  the  Government,  and  it  should  only  be  increased  as 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUKKENCY.  249 

per  capita  with  the  increase  of  the  population  after  every 
census. 

Your  petitioner  further  prays  the  Honorable  Senators  and 
Representatives  to  examine  with  care  the  following  reasons, 
that  prompted  him  to  offer  this  petition  : 

Impelled  as  I  am  by  an  irresistible  desire  to  do  all,  that 
is  possible  to  call  and  fix  the  undivided  attention  of  the  Gov- 
ernment on  the  appalling  scenes  of  wretchedness  and  ruin, 
that  would  inevitably  follow  the  re-chartering  of  the  2,300 
banks,  deceitfully  called  national — I  cannot  help  addressing 
you  on  this  occasion  once  more. 

Such  an  army  of  banks,  all  united  in  one  common  effort 
to  secure  for  themselves  the  largest  amount  of  interest  on 
their  small  specie  capital,  would  find  it  for  their  advantage 
to  expand  and  contract  the  currency  to  attain  their  object. 

Only  a  few  weeks  ago  (March  30,  1882),  lion.  Richard 
Warner,  M.  C.,  from  Tennessee,  proved  in  Congress,  that  the 
banks,  deceitfully  styled  national,  have  made  out  of  the  peo- 
ple the  enormous  sum  of  $1,848,930,000  within  the  last  six- 
teen years,  leaving  the  national  debt,  at  the  present  time, 
nearly  as  large  as  it  was  at  the  close  of  our  terrible  war  for 
the  nation's  life. 

For  one,  I  have  the  most  fearful  forebodings  of  the  con- 
sequences, that  must  grow  out  of  a  re-charter  of  these  grasp- 
ing institutions,  which  are  even  litigating  to  ~be  exempted  from 
local  taxes  ! !  The  American  people  are  beginning  to  realize, 
that  a  national  debt  is  not  a  ~blessing,  as  claimed  by  selfish 
monopolists,  but  a  national  curse,  which  a  wise  and  parental 
Government  should  dread  as  we  would  a  pestilence. 

I  have  lately  learned,  that  a  secret  organization  has  grown 
up  in  our  country,  which  is  known  as  the  Knights  of  Labor, 
and  that  they  already  number  150,000,  and  are  daily  in- 
creasing from  the  strikes,  that  extend  over  the  States.  They 
are  under  the  guidance  of  able  and  talented  leaders,  who 
have  the  wisdom  and  courage  to  tell  their  working  brothers 
what  they  must  do  to  save  themselves  and  families  from  the 
enslavement  of  a  national  debt,  that  enriches  monopolists  and 


250  .       COIN  AND   PAPER   CUEEENCY. 

non-producers.  They  caution  them  against  strikes  for  higher 
wages,  and  advise  them  to  continue  work  and  use  their 
money  to  buy  for  each  organized  company  a  Gatling  gun 
with  150  .rounds  of  ammunition,  and  three  months'  pro- 
visions for  their  families ;  then  they  may,  like  honest  and 
prudent  men  demand,  obtain  and  maintain  their  "  inalien- 
able right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,"  as 
mentioned  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

Such  a  body  of  industrious  men,  with  such  leaders,  will 
not  allow  idle  tramps  as  members  of  their  order.  If  our 
bankers  would  act  wisely  and  prudently,  they  would  adopt 
the  language  of  the  late  John  Earl  Williams,  for  many  years 
the  honored  President  of  the  Metropolitan  Bank  of  E"ew 
York: 

"  I  would  suggest,  that  Congress  assume,  at  once,  the  in- 
herent sovereign  prerogative  of  a  Government  and  exercise 
it,  by  furnishing  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States 
with  a  uniform  national  currency.  Surely  the  people,  and 
the  people  only,  have  a  natural  right  to  all  the  advantages, 
emolument,  or  income,  that  may  inure  from  the  issue  of 
either  $1,000  bonds  with  interest,  or  $10  notes  without, 
based  on  the  faith  and  credit  of  the  nation,"  etc.  .  ,  . 

In  1813  Jefferson  declared  :  "  Bank  notes  must  be  sup- 
pressed and  the  circulation  restored  to  the  nation,  to  whom 
it  belongs,"  etc.  .  .  .  ; 

Webster  predicted  that  conditions,  which  permitted  the 
rapid  accumulation  of  property  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  re- 
mitting the  masses  to  poverty,  would  soon  destroy  free  in- 
stitutions etc 

In  spite  of  warnings,  uttered  and  written  by  sages,  states- 
men and  financiers  from  Franklin,  Jefferson  and  Webster 
to  Senator  Jones,  President  John  Earl  Williams  and  Treas- 
urer Spinner  ;  in  spite  of  the  seven  and  ten  yearly  periodic 
panics,  that  impoverished  our  farmers,  manufacturers,  me- 
chanics and  laborers,  and  enriched  the  banks  and  capitalists, 
Secretary  Folger  and  Comptroller  Knox  seem  now  inclined 
to  advise  the  re-chartering  of  these  banks,  deceitfully  called 


COIN  AND   PAPER   CUEEENCY.  251 

national.  I  wish  these  two  financiers  could  see  as  clearly  as 
Treasurer  Spinner,  before  it  is  too  late. 

The  charter  of  these  banks,  deceitfully  styled  national, 
was  granted  February  25,  1863,  under  the  pretext  of  a  war 
measure.  In  1861  they  circulated  but  $31,235,270  of  notes, 
furnished  and  guaranteed  by  the  United  States  Treasury ; 
in  1865  they  circulated  $145,137,800,  which,  from  that  date 
to  1880,  increased  to  $343,834,167.  On  these  millions  the 
people's  Treasury  has  paid  them  interest  in  gold  ever  since, 
while  laborers  and  producers  had  to  take  their  wages  in 
paper.  Thus  did  the  one  hundred  and  twenty  bankers,  who 
were  members  of  Congress,  manage  to  legislate  for  their  in- 
terests. jSTow  their  first  charter,  being  about  to  expire,  they 
apply  for  a  re-charter  in  a  time  of  profound  peace,  when 
there  can  be  no  pretext  for  a  war  measure.  Such  a  power 
in  the  hands  of  heartless  corporations  is  not  only  dangerous 
to  our  liberties  and  persons,  but  to  our  daily  comforts ;  be- 
cause, when  they  see  fit,  they  contract  their  circulation  and 
refuse  accommodation  to  manufacturers  and  employers,  who 
are  consequently  obliged  to  stop  work  and  discharge  the  men 
and  women  in  their  employ,  thus  causing  panics,  poverty, 
misery  and  ruin.  Soon  such  contraction  will  reach  farms, 
houses  and  stocks,  which  these  favored  banks  and  their 
friends  can  buy  for  one-half  or  one-quarter  of  their  cost ; 
because  the  honest  owners  cannot  pay  the  interest  and  taxes 
thereon,  all  of  which  makes  the  rich  richer  and  the  poor 
poorer,  as  happened  from  1837  to  1841,  from  1847  to  1850, 
from  1857  to  1863,  and  from  1873  to  1878— when  the  labor- 
ing and  producing  classes  were  impoverished  by  special  leg- 
islation, that  enabled  bankers  and  monopolists  to  deceive  the 
people  and  bribe  such  as  stood  in  their  way.  .  .  . 

There  was  a  somewhat  plausible  reason  in  1863  to  char- 
ter banks,  deceitfully  styled  national — this  reason  was  called 
war  measure ;  but  now,  1882,  our  country  and  the  world 
are  at  peace ;  there  is  not  even  a  war  cloud.  Why  then  re- 
charter  these  banks  against  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Con- 
stitution, which  contains  no  clause  or  word,  that  authorizes 


252  COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY. 

Congress  to  delegate  the  money  power  to  any  body  ?  Allow 
me  to  cite  again  Senator  Jones'  emphatic  language : 

"  By  interfering  with  the  standards  of  the  country,  Con- 
gress has  led  the  country  away  from  the  realms  of  pros- 
perity, and  thrust  it  beyond  the  bounds  of  safety.  To  re- 
fuse to  replace  it  upon  its  former  vantage  ground  would  be 
to  incur  a  responsibility  and  a  deserved  reproach,  greater 
than  that,  which  men  have  ever  before  felt  themselves  able 
to  bear.  We  cannot,  we  dare  not,  avoid  speedy  action  on  the 
subject.  Not  only  does  reason,  justice  and  authority  unite 
in  urging  us  to  retrace  our  steps,  but  the  organic  law  com- 
mands us  to  do  so;  and  the  presence  of  peril  enjoins  what 
the  law  commands." 

May  our  Congress  pass  no  more  laws,  giving  away  im- 
mense tracts  of  land  to  heartless  corporations,  thus  creating 
land  monopolies,  like  those  that  now  curse  the  British  Isles 
— and  grant  no  charters  to  banks,  that  can  contract  and  ex- 
pand the  people's  medium  of  exchange  at  their  pleasure  ; — 
for  such  legislation  favors  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the 
many,  causes  discontent  among  the  masses  and  produces 
Nihilists,  Guiteaus  and  men,  who  commit  acts,  like  the  one 
just  perpetrated  in  Dublin,  May  7, 1882,  which  disgraces  the 
civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

As  previously  stated,  I  am  now  in  the  ninety-second  year 
of  my  age,  and  have  the  satisfaction  of  knowing,  that  I  have 
given  to  my  country  the  best  efforts  of  a  long,  laborious  life. 
In  the  course  of  my  endeavours  I  harve  written  and  printed 
more  than  a  million  of  documents,  which  I  have  sent  to 
Congress,  to  the  President  and  members  of  the  Cabinet, 
and  to  all  parts  of  our  common  country. 

The  burden  of  my  theme  has  been  to  show,  that  the  Con- 
stitution has  made  it  the  imperative  duty  of  Congress  to 
take  and  hold  the  entire  control  of  all,  that  should  ever  be 
allowed  or  used  as  the  money  of  the  nation.  If  the  plan, 
set  forth  in  a  petition  to  Congress,  to  the  President  and  his 
Cabinet  on  the  14th  of  December,  1862,  in  which  I  showed, 
that  my  ideas  of  finance  were  based  on  the  opinions  of  such 


COIN  AND  PAPEK  CURRENCY.  253 

men  as  Franklin,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Calhoun,  Webster, 
etc.,  whose  words  and  warnings  I  quoted,  as  I  do  in  this 
document — had  been  adopted,  the  Government  would  have 
all  the  means  it  wanted  in  Treasury  notes,  and  we  should 
not  have  an  enormous  bonded  debt  in  1882. 
Most  respectfully, 

PETER  COOPER. 


PETER  COOPER'S  PROTEST  AGAINST  THE   NATIONAL  BANKS, 
AS  QUOTED  IN  "  NEW  YORK  HERALD,"  MAY  10,  1882. 

The  venerable  Peter  Cooper  has  sent  a  petition  to  the 
Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  praying,  that  the  pres- 
ent Congress  may  not  adjourn,  until  it  "has  made  the  neces- 
sary and  proper  law  requiring,  that  all  banking  shall  in 
future  be  carried  on  with  United  States  Treasury  notes,  re- 
ceivable for  all  forms  of  taxes,  duties  and  debts,  both  public 
and  private,  and  that  after  the  expiration  of  the  charter  of 
our  present  banks,  no  paper  money  shall  ever  be  allowed  to 
circulate  in  this  country  in  excess  of  the  amount  of  the 
people's  money,  actually  found  circulating  as  the  currency  at 
the  close  of  the  war.  For  every  dollar  of  that  currency  the 
people  had  given  value  to  the  Government,  and  it  should 
only  be  increased  as  per  ca/pita  with  the  increase  of  the 
population  after  every  census." 

Mr.  Cooper  in  support  of  his  prayer  against  the  rechart- 
ering  of  the  2,200  banks,  "deceitfully  called  national,  all 
united  in  one  common  effort  to  secure  for  themselves  the 
largest  amount  of  interest  on  their  small  specie  capital,  and 
who  find  it  for  their  advantage  to  expand  and  contract  the 
currency  to  attain  their  object,"  quotes  a  vast  number  of 
authorities.  He  suggests,  that  Congress  should  assume  at 
once  the  inherent  sovereign  prerogative  of  a  Government 
and  exercise  it  by  furnishing  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
United  States  with  a  uniform  national  currency.  In  fact  to 
substitute  the  United  States  notes  for  bank  notes,  and  take 
away  as  soon  as  possible  and  forever  all  circulation  from 


254  COIN  ANT)   PAPER  CUEEENCY. 

banks.  By  this  means  their  occupation  would  not  be  gone. 
Mr.  Cooper  points  out,  that  they  would  still  be  in  a  position 
to  do  a  strictly  legitimate  business  as  banks  of  account  and 
deposit,  and  asserts  that  the  laws,  which  created  them  are 
also  fully  competent  to  abolish  them.  This  principle,  sim- 
ple, clear  and  undeniable,  says  Mr.  Cooper,  ought  to  be 
recognized  as  fundamental,  and  the  only  safe  and  proper 
basis,  on  which  may  securely  rest  all  the  circulating  medium 
of  the  country,  for  the  sole  benefit  of  all  the  people,  and  not 
as  now,  for  the  profit  of  a  class  of  stockholders,  however 
deserving  they  may  be  in  all  other  respects.  Franklin, 
Jefferson,  Madison,  Jackson,  Calhoun  and  Webster  are 
next  cited  by  Mr.  Cooper  as  being  in  favor  of  paper  money, 
founded  upon  the  credit  of  the  Government  and  its  resour- 
ces, etc.  .  .  .* 

OPEN  LETTER  TO  THE  MEMBERS  OF  THE  BANKERS'  CONVENTION, 
AT  SARATOGA,  AUGUST  17,  1882. 

GENTLEMEN  :  A  long  life  has  compelled  me  to  believe, 
that  Christianity,  as  Christ  taught  it,  presents  to  the  world 
the  true  science  for  the  guidance  of  all  National  Govern- 
ments, and  of  all  individual  lives.  There  is  no  command 
more  clear,  plain  and  self-evident  than  the  one,  which  de- 
clares, that  "  all  things  whatsoever  ye  would,  that  men  should 
do  unto  you,  do  ye  even  so  unto  them."  This  command 
applies  to  every  act  and  every  condition  in  life.  All  men 
are  made  to  feel,  how  they  would  like  others  to  do  unto 
them,  and  that  feeling  should  form  the  true  measure  of 
duty  we  owe  to  those  around  us. 

Science  is  a  rule  or  law  of  God,  by  which  the  movements 
of  the  material  creation  are  rendered  intelligible  to  man ; 
science  itself  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  knowledge  of 
this  law  or  rule,  actually  demonstrated  by  the  experience  of 
mankind.  Believing  this,  I  have  given  the  labors  of  a  long 
life  to  the  advancement  and  diffusion  of  scientific  knowledge? 

*  The  Herald  quoted  nearly  the  whole  petition. 


COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  255 

feeling  assured  that,  when  Christianity  itself  is  felt  in  all 
its  purity,  power  and  force ;  when  it  is  relieved  of  all  its 
creeds  and  systems  of  human  device,  it  will  then  be  found 
to  be  a  simple  system — a  science  or  rule  of  life,  to  guide 
and  regulate  the  actions  of  mankind. 

Mankind,  throughout  the  world,  requires  a  complete  science 
of  immortality — one  founded  on  the  highest  conceivable 
idea,  that  a  human  mind  can  form  of  all  that  is  powerful, 
wise,  pure  and  goo4- 

The  world  requires  a  science,  based  on  that  which  may  be 
known  and  clearly  seen  throughout  all  the  unfolding  leaves 
of  creation ;  one  that  can  be  known  and  read  of  all  men,  by 
that  true  light  "given  to  enlighten  every  man, 'that  cometh 
into  the  world." 

Science  is  the  lamp  in  the  world's  path  to  light  the  way 
to  all  those  wondrous  treasures,  stored  up  in  Nature ;  to 
reward  the  head  and  hand  of  patient  industry  and  toil. 

It  is  now  in  the  power  of  those,  who  favor  the  present 
system  of  National  Banks  to  carry  out  this  principle  by 
adopting  a  plan,  that  will  secure  for  themselves  as  a  body  of 
bankers,  for  our  country,  and  for  the  world  the  greatest 
blessing,  that  ever  fell  to  the  lot  of  man  since  the  world 
began. 

To  secure  this  greatest  of  all  blessings,  it  is  only  necessary 
for  the  National  Bankers  to  unite  and  ask  Congress  to  give 
back  to  the  people  the  amount  of  legal  tender  notes,  that 
were  in  circulation  at  the  close  of  the  war,  and  which  formed 
the  nation's  currency.  This  money  was  wrongfully  taken 
from  the  people ;  for  it  must  not  be  forgotten,  that  they 
had  given  labor  and  property  for  every  dollar  of  that  money. 

When  the  attempt  was  made  in  the  Senate  to  take  that 
money  from  its  rightful  owners,  and  to  convert  the  same 
into  a  National  debt,  Senator  Sherman  characterized  that 
act  for  contracting  the  currency,  as  an  act  of  folly  without 
a  parallel  in  ancient  or  modern  times.  His  whole  speech 
made  at  that  time  was  intended  to  show,  that  a  nation's  cur- 
rency could  not  be  contracted  without  bringing  ruin  to  the 


256  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

debtors  and  the  laboring  classes  throughout  our  country. 
He  declared  in  the  Senate  in  1869,  before  he  had  been 
tempted  above  what  he  was  able  to  bear,  that — 

"  The  appreciation  of  the  currency  is  a  far  more  distress- 
ing operation  than  Senators  supposed.  It  is  not  possible  to 
take  this  voyage  without  the  sorest  distress  to  every  person, 
except  a  capitalist  out  of  debt,  or  a  salaried  officer,  or  an 
annuitant.  It  is  a  period  of  loss,  danger,  lassitude  of  trade, 
fall  of  wages,  suspension  of  enterprise,  bankruptcy  and  dis- 
aster. To  every  railroad  it  is  an  addition  of  one-third  to 
the  burden  of  its  debts,  and  more  than  that  deduction  to  the 
value  of  stock.  ...  It  means  that  the  ruin  of  all  dealers, 
whose  debts  become  twice  their  (business)  capital,  though 
one-third  less  than  their  actual  property.  It  means  the  fall 
of  all  agricultural  productions  without  any  great  reduction 
of  taxes.  What  prudent  man  would  dare  to  build  a  house, 
a  railroad,  a  factory,  or  a  barn,  with  the  certain  fact  before 
him,  that  the  greenbacks  he  puts  into  his  improvement,  will 
in  two  years,  be  worth  thirty -five  per  cent,  more  than  his  im- 
provement is  worth  ?  .  .  .  When  that  day  comes,  all  en- 
terprise will  be  suspended,  every  bank  will  have  contracted 
its  currency  to  the  lowest  limit,  and  the  debtor  compelled  to 
meet  in  coin  a  debt  contracted  in  currency ;  he  will  find  the 
coin  hoarded  in  the  Treasury,  no  adequate  representation  of 
coin  in  circulation,  his  property  shrunk,  not  only  to  the 
extent  of  the  appreciation  of  the  currency,  but  still  more  by 
the  artificial  scarcity,  made  by  the  holders  of  gold." 

And  yet  Senator  Sherman  subsequently  was  the  author  of 
the  act  to  resume  specie  payments,  which  authorized  the 
contraction  of  the  legal  tenders  from  $382,000,000  down  to 
$300,000,000  ;  and  under  that  act  the  legal- tenders  were  re- 
duced to  $336,000,000,  and  the  very  disasters  he  had  pre- 
dicted, would  follow  such  contraction  of  currency,  were 
brought  upon  the  people ;  and  those  disasters  were  only 
partially  arrested  by  the  Act  of  May,  1878,  to  stop  any 
further  destruction  of  the  people's  money. 

This  act  of  Senator  Sherman's  wrought  a  ruin  like  that, 


COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  25? 

which  was  brought  upon  England  by  its  efforts  to  resume 
specie  payments  after  a  suspension  of  twenty-five  years. 
This  effort  to  resume  specie  payments,  by  contracting  the 
currency,  brought  upon  England  such  ruin,  that  at  least  five- 
sixths  of  the  real  estate  of  that  country  passed  into  the  pos- 
session of  a  few  moneyed  men,  who  bought  the  estates  at  a 
small  part  of  their  former  value.  Sir  Archibald  Alison,  in 
his  "  History  of  England,"  says,  the  suffering  produced  in 
England  by  the  act  of  contraction  was  greater,  than  had  ever 
been  occasioned  in  England  by  earthquakes,  all  the  wars, 
pestilence  and  famine  she  had  been  compelled  to  endure  ; 
and  he  expressed  the  hope,  that  our  Government  would  not 
be  so  unwise,  as  to  adopt  a  similar  policy  to  obtain  specie 
payments. 

Some  time  ago  a  law  was  passed  by  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives to  continue  the  people's  money,  then  found  in  cir- 
culation, as  the  permanent  legal  measure  of  all  values  for 
our  whole  country  for  all  coming  time.  When  the  news  of 
the  passage  of  that  law  was  sent  over  the  telegraph  wires,  it 
brought  an  acclamation  of  joy  and  gladness  from  all  parts  of 
the  country.  When  the  bankers  received  this  news,  they, 
by  their  committees,  came  down  on  Congress  and  brought 
such  influences  to  bear  on  members,  as  proved  sufficient  to 
defeat  a  law,  'that  would  have  saved  some  ten  thousand  mil- 
lions of  property  from  passing  out  of  the  hands  of  those, 
who  had  earned  it,  into  the  hands  of  those,  who  had  money 
enough  to  buy  up  the  wrecks  of  ruined  fortunes,  resulting 
from  the  contraction  of  a  nation's  currency. 

The  great  mass  of  the  people  are  coming  to  see  and 
know,  that  the  Constitution  makes  the  most  ample  provision 
for  supplying  every  want  of  the  Government,  as  it  declares 
in  the  most  unmistakable  language,  that  "  Congress  shall 
have  power  to  levy  and  collect  taxes,  duties,  imposts,  and  ex- 
cises, to  pay  the  debts  and  provide  for  the  common  defence 
and  the  general  welfare  of  these  United  States.  But  all 
duties,  imposts,  and  excises  shall  be  uniform  throughout  the 
United  States." 
17 


258  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

When  our  late  war  began,  calls  for  loans  were  made  in 
strict  conformity  with  the  requirements  of  the  Constitution, 
in  the  shape  of  Treasury  notes,  made  receivable  for  taxes, 
duties  and  debts,  and  fundable  at  an  interest  of  five  or  six 
per  cent.  Those  loans  were  promptly  taken,  as  soon  as  of- 
fered, and  more  money  was  offered  than  could  be  taken 
under  the  call.  The  duty  of  Secretary  Chase  was  plain  and 
positive,  etc.  .  .  . 

If  Secretary  Chase  had  not,  at  that  time,  been  afflicted 
with  the  Presidential  malaria  he  would  have  found  no  diffi- 
culty in  understanding  Thomas  Jefferson's  plain,  common- 
sense  directions.  It  would  have  saved  for  our  country  one- 
half  the  expense  of  the  late  war,  and  would  have  saved  Sec- 
retary Chase  from  the  mortification  of  saying,  that  his  efforts 
to  establish  a  system  of  national  banks  was  the  great  mis- 
take of  his  life. 

President  Grant,  in  his  first  message  to  Congress,  says  he 
found  the  currency  the  best  our  country  had  ever  possessed  ; 
and  there  was  no  more  in  circulation  than  was  needed  for 
the  dullest  period  of  the  year." 

President  Garfield  makes  the  following  declaration  : 

"Whoever  controls  the  volume  of  currency,  is  absolute 
master  of  the  industry  and  commerce  of  the  country,"  etc.  . 

Nearly  all  the  great  statesmen  and  financiers  of  our  own 
and  foreign  countries  have,  in  the  most  decided  manner, 
given  their  opinion  in  favor  of  the  issue  of  Treasury  notes, 
as  the  best  means  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  Government  and 
people,  etc.  .  .  . 

Our  national  Constitution  holds  every  member  of  the  Gov- 
ernment bound  under  the  solemnity  of  his  oath  of  office  to 
make  his  every  legislative  act  an  effort,  or  intent  to  establish 
justice,  as  that  is  the  only  possible  means,  by  which  domes- 
tic tranquility  can  be  secured,  provision  made  for  the  com- 
mon defence,  the  general  welfare  promoted  and  the  bless- 
ings of  liberty  secured  for  ourselves  and  our  posterity,  etc. 

I  became  convinced  by  what  I  have  seen,  th.at  all  trade 
must  continue  to  be  a  kind  of  game  of  chance,  so  long  as 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  259 

the  business  of  the  country  is  allowed  to  depend  on  banks, 
that  promise  to  pay  specie  on  demand.  The  same  causes, 
that  have  produced  periodical  panics  in  the  past,  will  bring 
them  in  the  future,  unless  prevented  by  a  national  currency, 
over  which  our  Government  can  exercise  entire  control.  I 
determined,  then  and  there,  that  it  would  never  be  safe  for 
me  to  allow  my  business  to  depend  on  notes,  discounted  at 
banks,  which,  to  save  themselves,  are  often  compelled  to  ruin 
their  customers.  I  saw  that,  even  with  a  good  man  at  the 
head  of  such  a  bank  of  issue  with  its  branches  in  every 
State,  it  would  be  in  the  future  as  in  the  past,  one  of  the 
grandest  contrivances  to  demoralize  a  nation. 

Banks  of  issue  have  it  in  their  power  to  make  money 
plenty,  by  loaning  to  the  community  an  extra  amount  of 
paper  money,  which  will  cause  all  property  to  rise  in  price 
and  the  withdrawal  of  that  extra  amount  of  money  from 
the  wants  of  trade,  will  as  certainly  cause  all  the  property 
of  a  country  to  fall  in  value,  as  it  did  when  the  bankers  of 
our  own  country  persuaded  our  Government  to  contract  our 
national  currency  to  about  half  of  its  volume,  in  order  (a 
ridiculous  pretence)  to  strengthen  the  credit  of  our  country. 
Our  Government  has  put  in  the  place  of  the  currency  burned, 
a  national  debt,  which  must  ever  hang  as  a  millstone  about 
the  neck  of  the  toiling  masses,  and  on  which  the  laboring 
classes  have  already  paid  in  gold  tnterest  an  amount  about 
equal  to  the  original  debt,  and  which  interest  they  are  ex- 
pected to  go  on  paying  for  years,  and  then,  at  last,  to  pay 
the  principal. 

This  unjust  course  of  legislation  has  driven  millions  of 
laboring  men  into  a  condition  of  enslavement  to  the  pay- 
ment of  the  national  debt,  which  must  be  paid  out  of  the 
proceeds  of  labor,  etc.  .  .  . 

Webster  predicted,  that  conditions  which  permitted  the 
rapid  accumulation  of  property  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  remit- 
ting the  masses  to  poverty,  would  soon  destroy  free  insti- 
tutions. 

I  do  most  sincerely  hope  and  trust,  that  the  united  opinions 


260  COIN  AND   PAPER   CUKKENCY. 

of  so  many  of  the  greatest  and  best  men  our  country  has 
ever  produced,  will  be  sufficient  to  prevail  on  all  owners  of 
national  banks  to  confine  their  business  in  the  future  to  dis- 
counting and  receiving  deposits,  instead  of  depending  on  a 
dangerous  power,  which  our  Constitution  has  vested  in 
Congress.  Remember  Jefferson  firmly  delared  that  "  bank 
paper  must  be  suppressed,  and  the  currency  of  the  country 
must  be  restored  to  the  Government,  to  whom  it  properly 
belongs." 

I  think  bankers  will  voluntarily  adopt  the  advice  of  Jef- 
ferson and  thus  secure  to  all  the  greatest  blessing,  that  ever 
fell  to  the  lot  of  man,  and  ward  off  those  terrible  evils, 
that  are  sure  to  follow  our  present  system,  as  effects  are  sure 
to  follow  the  causes,  which  produce  them. 

Mankind  as  individuals,  communities,  States  or  nations 
will  only  improve  and  better  their  condition,  just  in  propor- 
tion as  they  come  to  see,  know  and  understand,  that  what  a 
man  soweth,  that  must  he  also  reap  somewhere,  somehow  and 
at  sometime,  by  the  operation  of  laws  so  wise  and  so  good, 
that  they  will  never  require  to  be  altered,  amended  or  re- 
voked. There  may  at  some  fututre  day  be  a  whirlwind 
precipitated  upon  the  moneyed  men  of  this  country,  if  they 
do  not  deal  justly. 

Pertinent  to  this  subject  are  the  following  words  of  Rev. 
Henry  Ward  Beecher : — 

"  Here  at  present  is  the  strife  going  on  between  employer 
and  employed,  between  labor  and  capital — the  former  de- 
manding a  portion  of  that,  which  it  has  helped  to  create. 
We  hear  already  the  suggestions  of  the  devil  inspiring  men, 
who  are  poor  to  hate  the  men,  who  are  rich,  and  society  is 
beginning  to  torment  itself  as  to  the  consequences.  JSTow, 
if  the  rich  men  are  wise  they  will  lay  aside  at  once  this 
devilish  idea,  that  they  can  swell  before  the  community 
in  vast  array  and  not  attach  themselves  to  the  humblest 
of  the  community.  If  the  rich  men  by  and  by  are  over- 
whelmed it  will  be  their  own  fault.  The  most  dangerous 
thing  they  can  do,  is  to  seperate  .themselves  from  the 


COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  261 

masses.  If  there  be  any  class  of  men,  that  are  bound  to 
go  down  and  ally  themselves  to  the  poor  with  full  hands 
and  full  hearts,  it  is  the  men  in  this  community,  who  have 
property.  It  may  not  be  done  now,  but  there  is  a  storm  in 
the  sky,  and  if  by  and  by  there  should  come  revolution, 
massacre  and  misrule,  it  is  because  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel 
has  been  set  at  naught  by  the  men,  who  had  the  power  in 
their  own  hands.  It  will  not  do  for  a  man  to  say,  ( I  sym- 
pathize with  my  poor  brethren.'  What  do  the  poorer  breth- 
ren think  about  it  ?  Between  the  horse  and  the  man,  who 
holds  the  whip  is  a  wide  difference,  and  the  horse  is  the  best 
judge  of  how  the  whip  feels.  In  society  the  men,  who  have 
got  hold  of  the  handle,  are  not  as  good  judges  as  the  men, 
who  feel  the  lash%  In  England  there  is  an  autocracy  estab- 
lished by  law,  and  years  of  experience  have  taught  the  titled 
class,  that  they  have  duties  and  responsibilities  as-  well  as 
wealth  and  position.  In  America  we  have  no  aristocrats 
except  those,  who  have  sprung  up  in  a  night — as  toad- 
stools do  in  the  dung-hill.  Nothing  will  save  us  from 
the  contest  of  different  classes  of  society,  except  that  per- 
sonal humanity  and  personal  sympathy,  which  shall  unite 
the  top  and  the  bottom  of  society ;  and  you  must  not  carry 
up  the  top  of  society  any  faster,  than  you  carry  up  the  bot- 
tom. You  must  not  say  '  We  will  educate  our  children,  but 
not  the  children  of  the  poor ; '  In  our  day,  let  us  be  wise 
beforehand.  I  will  close  with  some  words  of  Ruskin,  who 
is  eminently  wise,  when  he  is  not  eminently  foolish.  He 
said  to  his  class,  'Break  bread  often  with  the  common 
people.' " 

In  order  that  we  may  realize  the  greatest  possible  good 
for  all  it  is  only  necessary,  that  our  Government  should  give 
us  an  unfluctuating  measure  of  all  values  ;  with  a  Postal  Sav- 
ings Bank,  that  will  receive  all  unoccupied  money,  at  an  in- 
terest of  two  and  a  half  per  cent. ;  provide  cheap  transporta- 
tion for  all  products  of  our  country ;  a  complete  civil  ser- 
vice ;  and  a  tariff  of  duties,  sufficient  to  meet  the  wants  of 
our  economical  Government ;  thus  relieving  our  country 


262         COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY. 

from  all  forms  of  internal  taxes  for  the  support  of  our  Gov- 
ernment. 

All  our  financial  legislation  has  been  calculated  to  build 
up  and  maintain  a  union  of  more  than  two  thousand  Na- 
tional Banks,  for  banks  are  a  unit  in  their  endeavor  to  ob- 
tain for  the  use  of  their  money  the  largest  amount,  that  the 
laws  will  allow  them  to  receive. 

The  persons,  having  charge  of  the  banks  will  always  be 
on  the  alert  to  get  their  powers  enlarged  by  legislative 
enactments,  though  I  am  compelled  to  hope,  that  the  day 
will  come,  when  the  bankers  themselves  will  do  themselves 
everlasting  honor  by  asking  Congress  to  expunge  all  those 
unjust  financial  laws  from  the  statute  books  of  our  country, 
as  a  disgrace  to  the  civilization  of  the  age. 

The  first  of  the  laws  passed  for  the  preservation  of  our 
nation's  life  was  for  the  issue  of  Treasury  notes,  that  were 
made  a  legal  tender  and  convertible  at  the  pleasure  of  the 
holder,  into  five  and  six  per  cent,  bonds.  These  notes  were 
always  as  valuable  as  gold,  until  the  bankers  persuaded  a 
majority  of  Congress  to  pass  an  act,  that  took  away  from  the 
legal  money  its  power  to  pay  duties  on  imports  and  interest 
on  bonds.  This  was  an  invalidating  act  and  clearly  at  vari- 
ance with  both  the  spirit  and  the  letter  of  the  Constitution. 

FINANCE  CATECHISM. 

(From  the  Daily  Express.) 

"  REPUBLICAN. — Why  do  the  Greenbackers  or  Nationals 
oppose  the  national  banking  system  ? 

NATIONAL. — Because  it  is  unjust  to  the  people. 

REPUBLICAN. — But  will  you  make  it  plain,  so  that  all  can 
see  it  as  you  do  ? 

NATIONAL. — We  will  try.  Let  us  go  into  the  bank  across 
the  street  and  prove  it  by  the  banker  himself. 

NATIONAL. — Mr.  Banker,  how  much  money  did  you  loan 
to  the  Government  ? 

BANKER. — One  million  dollars,  sir. 

NATIONAL. — What  security  did  you  take  for  the  loan  ? 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CTJREENCY.  263 

BANKER. — I  took  the  Government's  bond  payable  in 
twenty  years,,  drawing  six  per  cent.,  gold  interest. 

NATIONAL. — Do  you  still  hold  that  bond  ? 

BANKER. — No ;  I  pawned  it  to  the  Government,  and  re- 
ceived on  it  $900,000. of  currency. 

NATIONAL.— What  did  you  do  with  the  $900,000  of  cur- 
rency ? 

BANKER. — I  paid  it  out  to  the  people  for  property. 

NATIONAL. — What  security  have  the  people,  that  the 
money  you  paid  them  is  good  ? 

BANKER. — My  bond  is  on  deposit  as  collateral  for  its  final 
redemption  by  the  Government. 

NATIONAL. — Then  you  have  parted  with  nine-tenths  of 
your  claim  against  the  Government  by  passing  it  over  to  the 
people  in  exchange  for  their  property  ?  Or,  in  other  words, 
the  people  have  refunded  to  you  ninety  per  cent,  of  your  loan 
to  the  Government,  and  taken  a  lien  on  your  bond  ? 

BANKER. — Yes. 

NATIONAL. — Do  the  people  draw  from  the  Government 
nine-tenths,  or  their  proportion  of  the  interest  on  the  bond  ? 

BANKER. — Oh,  no,  I  still  continue  to  draw  the  entire 
interest,  without  being  taxed ;  while  the  people,  who  own 
nine-tenths  of  the  claim,  draw  no  interest,  and  are  taxed  to 
pay  mine. 

NATIONAL. — Then  really  the  Government  owes  you  but 
$100,000  of  the  million,  you  having  transferred  $900,000 
of  the  claim  to  the  people,  and  at  the  same  time  the  latter 
are  taxed  to  pay  you  interest  on  the  whole  ? 

BANKER. — Those  are  about  the  facts  under  the  law. 

NATIONAL. — To  what  extent  does  the  law  allow  you, 
bankers,  to  carry  this  system  of  speculation  ? 

BANKER. — We  are  not  limited  by  law.  We  can  carry  it 
to  the  extent  of  the  bonded  debt  of  the  nation.  It  is  one 
of  the  nicest  schemes  ever  invented.  It  is  like  a  ratchet 
wheel ;  it  takes  all  and  gives  nothing.  The  whole  people 
are  taxed  to  pay  us  interest  on  what  they  do  not  owe,  while 
we  are  exempt  even  from  our  own  burdens. 


264  COIN  AND  PAPER  CUKKENCY. 

NATIONAL. — Do  you  expect  to  hypothecate  more  of  your 
bonds  for  currency  and  transfer  them  to  the  people  for 
property  ? 

BANKER. — Yes,  as  soon  as  we  can  get  the  infernal  green- 
backs out  of  competition,  and  property  values  are  depre- 
ciated enough  to  enable  us  to  rope  in  three  dollars  worth 
for  one  of  our  currency.  This  we  intended  to  do,  when  we 
got  a  clause  inserted  in  the  Redemption  Act  to  allow  us  to 
inflate  our  bank  currency  without  limit. 

NATIONAL. — What  amount  of  bonds  do  you  now  hold, 
which  you  are  at  liberty  to  put  up  for  bank  currency  ? 

BANKER. — Nearly  ten  thousand  million  dollars,  with  what 
we  already  have  up. 

NATIONAL.— By  handling  the  $2,000,000,000  of  bonds 
and  the  nine-tenths  or  $1,800,000,000  of  currency,  as  you 
did  your  million  dollars  and  $900,000  of  currency,  what 
would  be  the  result,  financially,  of  your  investment  ? 

BANKER. — The  result  will  be,  we  shall  carry  but  one- 
tenth,  or  two  hundred  millions  of  the  public  debt,  while 
drawing  interest  on  the  whole.  The  people  will  carry  nine- 
tenths  of  the  burden,  draw  no  interest,  but  have  the  priv- 
ilege of  paying  ours. 

NATIONAL. — How  much  will  your  annual  interest  amount 
to? 

BANKER. — About  one  hundred  million. 

NATIONAL. — What  do  the .  taxpayers  get  in  return  ? 

BANKER. — Nothing. 

NATIONAL. — Then  you  contracted  to  extend  a  certain 
favor  to  the  Government,  for  which  you  were  to  receive 
$100,000,000  in  gold  per  year,  from  the  people.  But 
through  the  agency  of  your  national  banking  machinery, 
you  are  enabled  to  make  the  people  perform  nine-tenths  of 
your  contract,  while  you  receive  the  entire  reward.  Is  not 
this  a  most  outrageous  robbery — a  swindle  upon  the  people  ? 

BANKER. — (John  G-.  Deshler,  President  Franklin  National 

Bank,  Columbus,  Ohio). — If  the  people  are  such  d d 

fools,  as  to  vote  for  men  to  put  saddles  on  their  backs,  spurs 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  265 

on  my  boots,  and  then  invite  me  to  ride,  I  am  not  going  on 
foot.  If  it  is  robbery,  the  people,  who  sustain  the  party,  that 
authorized  the  robbery,  are  to  blame  and  not  the  robbers." 

If  this  is  not  an  overdrawn  picture  of  our  present 
system  of  banks,  deceitfully  called  national,  I  would 
most  sincerely  implore  the  owners  of  these  banks  to 
ward  off  such  a  train  of  evils,  as  fell  to  the  lot  of 
Belshazzar,  as  a  consequence  of  his  not  taking  the  advice  of 
his  prophet  Daniel,  when  he  said,  "  O  king,  let  my  counsel 
be  acceptable  unto  thee,  and  break  off  thy  sins  by  righteous- 
ness, and  thine  iniquities  by  showing  mercy  to  the  poor." 
By  not  availing  yourselves  of  the  law,  passed  by  a  corrupt 
Congress,  you  will  save  yourselves  and  your  country  from 
the  disasters  indicated  by  the  handwriting  on  the  wall ! 

Bastiat,  the  French  political  economist,  uttered  a  great 
truth,  when  he  said  : 

"  When  a  Government  fails  in  its  duty  to  organize  and 
execute  Constitutional  laws,  such  a  failure  opens  the  door 
for  the  introduction  of  all  forms  of  corruption  and  plunder, 
and  plundering  4tvill  go  on  just  as  long  as  plundering  is  al- 
lowed to  be  a  profitable  business." 

It  is  time,  that  we  made  plundering  unprofitable  ;  and  I 
hope  I  shall  be  so  <fortunate  as  to  convince  the  owners  of 
National  Banks,  that  this  is  their  great  opportunity  to  secure 
to  themselves,  to  our  country,  and  to  the  world,  one  of  the 
greatest  blessings,  that  ever  fell  to  the  lot  of  man. 

If  this  should  come  to  pass,  I  should  be  able  to  say  with 
one  of  old :  "  Now,  O,  Lord,  let  thy  servant  depart  in 
peace ;  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  thy  salvation." 

PETER  COOPEE. 

NEW  YOKK,  June,  1882. 
HON.  A.  A.  HARDENBERG,  M.  C. 

DEAR  SIR  :  I  received  your  kind  letter  of  May  24,  with 
pleasure,  seeing  that  your  speech  was  misreported,  as  the 
term  "infamous"  does  not  occur  in  it.  Honest  difference 
on  any  subject  is  fair,  whereas  personal  abuse  is  unfair. 


266  COIN"  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

Throughout  your  discourse  you  speak  of  the  danger  of 
withdrawing  bank  reserves,  amounting  to  $128,000,000,  if 
the  banks  are  not  re-chartered ;  but  you  seem  to  overlook, 
that  Congress  alone  has  power  to  replace  this  amount  by  legal 
tender  Treasury  notes,  a  power,  which  it  cannot  delegate. 

Page  5,  you  say:  "My  position  is  simply  this:  if  you 
compel  these  banks  to  divide  up  all  their  reserves,  you  will 
thereby  force  a  contraction  of  the  currency  to  the  extent  of 
$128,000,000,  which  no  greenback  theory  can  provide 
against.  And  the  men,  who  are  now  struggling  to  make  a 
living  for  themselves  and  their  families  with  their  wages  of 
a  dollar  and  a  half  or  two  dollars  a  day,  will  be  presenting 
themselves  before  you  here,  as  they  did  during  the  years  of 
1877  and  1878,  in  their  meetings  every  night  about  your 
Capitol,  demanding  some  protection,  demanding  that  some 
action  be  taken  by  you,  that  would  furnish  them  with  bread 
or  with  labor." 

In  my  humble  opinion,  legal  tender  Treasury  notes  would 
amply  provide  against  the  dividing  up  of  all  the  bank  re- 
serves. 

In*  your  speech  you  do  not  tell  these  "  struggling  men," 
that  their  parental  Government  is  paying  four  per  cent,  in- 
terest in  gold  on  $343,834,000,  circulated  by  2,200  banks, 
which  ask  now  to  be  rechartered  for  twenty  years  longer. 
You  do  not  tell  them,  that  the  interest  on  this  sum  amounts 
to  $13,753,360  per  year,  and  $275,067,200  in  twenty  years, 
besides  the  cost  of  keeping  the  deposits,  besides  liquidating 
the  banks,  that  fail  through  mismanagement,  and  beside  the 
lost  and  mutilated  bills  during  twenty  years,  all  of  which  be- 
long to  the  people,  and  cannot  be  given  away  by  Congress 
without  violating  the  Constitution. 

You  observe,  page  6 :  "  First  educate  the  people,  not  to 
communism,  not  to  socialism,  but  to  the  principles  of  Dem- 
ocracy and  of  a  pure  Government." 

I  think  it  will  be  difficult  to  educate  the  American  people 
of  1882  to  perceive  "  principles  of  Democracy  and  of  a  pure 
Government "  in  a  Congress,  that  legislates  $275,067,200  in 


COIN   AND   PAPEE   CURRENCY.  267 

favor  of  2,200  banks,  managed  by  non-producers,  at  the  ex- 
pense of  toiling  producers,  who  must  ultimately  pay  this 
enormous  sum  in  direct  and  indirect  taxation. 

The  people  are  realizing  the  flagrant  errors  of  such  legis- 
lation. •  They  begin  to  know,  that  Congress  alone  has  the 
power  to  save  this  money  by  passing  a  law,  authorizing  the 
issue  of  legal  tender  Treasury  notes,  based  on  the  property  of 
the  nation,  which  must  be  ever  preferable  to  any  banking  cor- 
porations. What  can,  what  will,  what  must  they  think  and 
say  of  representatives,  who  thus  legislate  away  hundreds  of 
millions  in  favor  of  a  few  rich  non-producers  at  the  expense 
of  the  toiling  masses  ? 

!Nb  wonder,  you  find  (as  you  say  page  2)  these  words 
about  the  national  banking  system,  uttered  by  Mr.  Burrows, 
of  Missouri :  "  It  is  one  of  the  most  wicked,  defenceless,  in- 
excusable, flagrant  cases  of  a  popular  swindle,  that  ever  came 
before  Congress,  not  excepting  the  land-grant,  Credit  Mo- 
bilier,  granite  contract,  river  and  harbor,  whisky  bill,  or 
other  swindles,  that  have  disgraced  the  congressional  legis- 
lation of  the  past,  or  threaten  it  at  the  present  moment." 
This  is  consoling,  showing,  as  it  does,  that  the  people  have 
still  representatives,  who  dare  protest  and  say  their  souls 
are  their  own. 

I  can  see  no  reason  why  Congress  should  not  do  the  busi- 
ness intrusted  to  them  by  the  Constitution,  which  declares : 
"  Congress  shall  have  power  to  coin  money,  and  regulate  the 
value  thereof."  I  have  looked  in  vain  for  a  word  or  clause, 
allowing  Congress  to  delegate  this  power  to  any  corporation, 
either  within  or  without  Congress.  If  they  can  delegate  the 
power  to  issue  money  to  banking  corporations,  they  can  del- 
egate the  power  to  regulate  commerce  between  the  States  to 
railroad  corporations. 

You  say,  page  6 : — "  If  I  had  my  own  way  I  would  fund 
the  $246,000,000  of  legal  tender  now  afloat.  I  remember 
when  meetings  were  held  here  and  members  of  Congress 
were  called  out  to  give  their  opinions  and  a  clamor-  was 
raised  for  the  legal  tenders,  which  had  been  retired,  to  be 


268  COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

reissued.  Congress  then  voted,  that  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  should  reissue  these  legal  tenders,  andthey  are 
now  afloat  among  the  people  to-day."  Yes,  legislate  to 
fund  these  legal  tenders  now  afloat  among  the  people,  and 
pay  capitalists  and  bankers  even  as  low  as  three  per  cent, 
interest  in  gold,  and  it  will  amount  to  the  modic  sum  of 
$10,380,000  per  year.  "While  they  are  afloat  they  cost 
nothing,  bear  no  interest ;  and  the  lost  and  mutilated  bills 
are  clear  profit  to  the  nation.  Yet,  against  the  popular 
clamor,  against  the  decision  of  Congress,  and  against  the 
spirit  and  letter  of  the  Constitution,  you  would  even  now 
fund  them,  if  you  had  your  own  way.  All  I  can  say  is, 
you  must  have  great  confidence  in  your  individual  judgment. 
Your  funding  of  these  legal  tenders,  now  in  the  hands  of  the 
people,  costing  nothing,  would  be  like  funding  the  $60,000,- 
000  of  small  paper  currency  of  five,  ten,  twenty-five  and 
fifty  cent,  bills,  so  portable  and  so  convenient  to  enclose  in 
letters,  that  the  people  preferred  them  to  copper,  nickel  and 
even  silver ;  but  they  were  withdrawn  from  circulation  and 
turned  into  a  national  debt,  bearing  from  six  and  four  per 
cent,  interest  in  gold,  amounting  to  $3,600,000  at  six  per 
cent,  per  year,*  and  to  $2,400,000  at  four  per  cent,  per  year. 
Ten  millions  of  that  small  paper  currency  amounting  to  six- 
teen per  cent,  have  not  come  in,  and  may  be  considered  as 
lost.  Had  they  been  issued  by  the  banks,  they  would  have 
this  sum  instead  of  the  nation.  To  allow  the  loss  and  mutil- 
ation of  the  $342,834,000,  now  circulated  by  the  banks,  is  a 
legislative  favoritism  not  dreamed  of  by  the  people,  who  must 
be  educated  to  realize  such  unfortunate  legislation.  Even  at 
one  per  cent,  it  amounts  to  $68,766,800  in  twenty  years. 
Such  has  been  our  financial  legislation  since  the  close  of 
the  late  war,  and  such  it  now  is,  if  these  banks  are  re- 
chartered. 

Page  2,  you  have  this  tender  effusion  concerning  me  (no 
wonder  your  friends  applauded  you) : 

"  Why,  sir,  it  was  but  two  days  ago,  in  my  morning  mail, 
came  a  letter  signed  by  generous-hearted  Peter  Cooper,  of 


COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  269 

New  York,  a  man  ninety-two  years  of  age,  a  man  who  has 
been  known,  honored,  and  trusted  by  the  American  people  ; 
whose  whole  life  has  been  one  of  benevolence,  piety,  and 
justice,  and  now  in  his  declining  years,  when  the  shadows 
of  the  next  world  are  gathering  thick  around  him,  and 
when  his  mind  cannot  be  in  the  course  of  Nature  as  clear 
and  bright  and  strong  as  it  was,  indorses  doctrines  the  most 
unwise  in  our  financial  history.  His  name  is  too  honored 
in  our  history  to  permit  the  foundations  of  a  proper  conser- 
vatism to  be  swept  away.  In  that  pamphlet,  to  which  I 
have  referred  is  quoted  a  suggestion,  which  I  venture  to  as- 
sert few  of  you  would  be  willing  to  give  countenance,  and  I 
am  quite  sure  Mr.  Cooper  does  not.  What  is  that  doctrine  ? 
Read  it,  Representatives  of  the  people,  and  you  will  under- 
stand it  better.  You  will  see  that,  instead  of  strikes  against 
labor,  suggestions  are  made  to  men  to  save  three  months  of 
their  wages  to  buy  Gatling-guns,  and  three  months  of  pro- 
visions, to  crush  out  monopolies  of  whatever  kind.  And 
this,  Mr.  Speaker,  in  a  representative  Government  of  the 
American  people.  Crush  where  you  can  monopolized 
power,  but  let  it  be  done  by  proper  process  of  law.  Why, 
Sir,  what  can  there  be  behind  all  this  crusade  upon  the  na- 
tional banks  ?  Men  are  tender  in  their  utterances  about  it, 
as  if  they  were  afraid  to  speak  their  minds.  I  believe  in 
educating  the  people  and  in  elevating  them  to  a  full  know- 
ledge of  these  great  questions  rather  than  pander  to  senti- 
ments born  of  hasty  and  unreasoning  prejudice."  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Though  I  am  in  my  ninety-second  year  and  "  shadows  of 
the  next  world  are  gathering  thick  around  "  me,  I  can  per- 
ceive in  your  speech  this  contradiction  :  You  speak  feelingly 
of  the  distress,  that  would  result  to  the  laboring  men  from 
dividing  up  all  the  bank  reserves,  which  would  "force  a 
contraction  of  the  currency  to  the  extent  of  $128,000,000." 
Next  you  declare  :  "  If  you  had  your  own  way,  you  would 
fund  the  $346,000,000  of  legal  tender  now  afloat."  In  the 
heat  of  debate  you  probably  did  not  realize  that,  in  doing 


270  COIN   AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

so,  you  would  "  force  a  contraction  of  the  currency  to  the 
extent  of"  $346,000,000,  which  would  be  more  than  double 
the  amount  of  the  bank  reserves,  amounting  to  but  $128,- 
000,000.  In  spite  of  my  age  and  the  clouds  around  me,  I 
perceive  a  difference  between  $346,000,000  and  $128,000,- 
000,  although  the  former  are  legal  tender  and  the  latter 
bank  reserves.  To  me  contraction  is  contraction,  whether 
it  assumes  the  shape  of  funding  legal  tender  or  dividing  up 
bank  reserves.  I  also  perceive  a  decided  difference  between 
$346,000,000  of  legal  tender  and  $343, 834,000  of  bank  bills, 
inasmuch  as  the  former  cost  the  people  nothing  but  the 
issuing,  whereas  the  latter  cost  the  people  $13,753,360  per 
year,  and  $275,067,200  in  twenty  years.  Hence  there  are 
275,067,200  reasons  for  keeping  "  the  legal  tender  afloat? 
and  for  not  re-chartering  the  banks,  whose  bills  may  at  any 
time  be  replaced  by  legal  tender  Treasury  notes,  saving  the 
nation  $13,753,360  a  year,  and  $275,067,200  in  twenty 
years,  besides  the  cost  of  keeping  bank  deposits,  liquidating 
badly  managed  banks,  and  lost  and  mutilated  bills,  which 
should  ever  belong  to  the  nation. 

At  the  close  of  the  war,  Congress  should  have  allowed 
the  full  amount  of  paper  currency  to  circulate  ;  because  the 
people  had  furnished  value  for  every;  dollar ;  and  it  should 
not  have  been  augmented,  except  per  capita,  with  the  in- 
crease of  population.  As  the  bank  charter  is  now  expiring, 
their  currency  should  be  replaced  by  legal  tender  Treasury 
notes. 

In  your  letter  you  allude  to  "  doctrines  the  most  unwise  in 
our  financial  history"  These  same  doctrines  are  fully 
stated  herein.  I  am  ready  to  leave  these  doctrines  to  the 
decision  of  my  countrymen.  K"ext  you  refer  to  "  a  sugges- 
tion quoted"  in  my  "pamphlet"  and  invite  "representatives 
of  the  people"*'  to  "read  that  doctrine"  In  my  pamphlet 
and  petition  I  state  what  I  found  in  the  Press,  and  express 
my  opinions,  which  are  based  on  quotations  from  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  adopted  by  the  world  as  a 
catechism  for  Republican  forms  of  Government.  If  that  is 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY.  271 

wrong,  I  am  wrong.  I  state  stubborn  facts ;  for  strikes 
have  been,  and  are  spreading  all  over  the  country  as  fore- 
runners of  revolution ;  if  Congress  does  not  heed  them,  I 
pity  its  members ;  for  the  trouble  will  ultimately  be  attri- 
buted to  them,  especially  when  the  suffering  masses  realize 
the  wholesale  class  legislation,  that  has  been,  and  is  going  on 
since  the  close  of  our  late  war.  We  have  no  Czar,  no  Sul- 
tan, no  king ;  the  people  will  look  to  Congress  for  redress 
of  their  grievances. 

You  state  in  your  speech,  that  li  the  men,  who  are  now 
struggling  to  make  a  living  for  themselves  and  their  fami- 
lies with  their  wages  of  a  dollar  and  a  half  or  two  dollars  a 
day,  will  be  presenting  themselves,  etc.,  as  they  did  during 
the  years  of  1877  and  1878,  in  their  meetings  every  night 
about  your  CapitoJ,  demanding  some  protection  ;  demanding, 
that  some  action  be  taken  by  you,  that  would  furnish  them 
with  bread  or  with  labor." 

For  such  reiterated  grievances  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence has  this  bold  statement:  "All  experience  hath 
shown,  that  mankind  are  more  disposed  to  suffer,  while 
evils  are  sufferable,  than  to  right  themselves  by  abolishing 
the  forms,  to  which  they  are  accustomed.  But  when  a  long 
train  of  abuses  and  usurpations,  pursuing  invariably  the 
same  object,  evinces  a  design  to  reduce  them  under  absolute 
despotism,  it  is  their  right,  it  is  their  duty,  to  throw  off  such 
Government,  and  to  provide  new  guards  for  their  future 
security." 

I  consider  the  persistent  class  legislation  of  Congress 
since  the  war,  a  worse  despotism  than  that  of  Great  Britain 
before  the  Revolution ;  because  it  reduces  the  laboring 
classes  to  periodic  distress  and  starvation,  that  are  worse 
than  any  despotism  ever  was ;  for  monopolizing  corporations, 
whether  in  the  shape  of  banks  or  railroads,  have  no  soul. 

In  my  pamphlet  and  petition  I  point  out  those  grievances. 
I  am  sorry  you  do  not  like  them.  I  know  they  have  been, 
are,  and  will  be  adopted  by  independent  and  unprejudiced 
persons. 


272  COIN  AND   PAPEE  CUEEENCY. 

I  always  have  been,  am,  and  ever  shall  be  with  the  poor 
toilers  and  producers ;  therefore  I  desire  Congress  to  legis- 
late for  the  poor  as  well  as  for  the  rich,  who  can  take  care 
of  themselves.  I  think,  if  you  considered  my  side  of  the 
question  carefully,  you  would  change  your  opinions  con- 
cerning legal  tender  Treasury  notes  and  bank  circulation. 

At  the  close  of  the  war  the  House  of  Eepresentatives 
passed  an  act,  declaring  that  the  people's  money,  then  found 
in  circulation  as  the  Nation's  currency,  should  be  and  re- 
main the  people's  legal  measure  of  all  values,  and  should 
only  be  increased,  as  per  capita,  with  the  increase  of  the  in- 
habitants of  our  country. 

Such  a  currency  was  passed  by  a  vote  in  the  House,  and 
was  only  prevented  from  becoming  the  permanent  legal 
money  of  our  country  by  the  combined  influence  of  the 
banks  and  bankers  of  our  own  and  other  countries. 

All  must  see,  that  such  a  law  would  have  secured  to  our 
country  a  currency  as  uniform  in  its  purchasing  power  as 
the  yard,  pound  weight,  and  bushel  measure,  etc.  .  .  . 

I  might  here  quote  Kev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher's  sermon, 
which  would  show,  that  I  am  not  alone  in  foreboding  the 
evils  that  will  be  brought  on  our  country  by  a  persistent 
course  of  financial  class  legislation. 

Sir,  by  it  you  might  realize,  that  thoughtful  men  are 
anxious  concerning  our  country's  welfare;  hence  let  the 
people's  Representatives  now  assembled  in  Congress  be  up 
to  the  emergency,  and  enact  laws,  tending  to  conciliate  em- 
ployers and  employed,  rich  and  poor — laws,  that  will  dimin- 
ish the  burden  of  taxpayers.  First  and  foremost  among 
such  laws  should  be  a  refusal  to  pay  interest  on  the  $343,- 
834,000  bank  deposits,  and  replace  them  by  legal  tender 
Treasury  notes,  thus  saving  $13,753,360  per  year.  Next, 
use  the  $150,000,000  now  in  the  Treasury  to  cancel  a  part 
of  our  enormous  interest-bearing  debt ;  this,  at  four  per  cent, 
interest,  will  save  $6,000,000  per  year.  While  in  the 
Treasury,  it  is  a  temptation  to  corruption  and  bribery,  no 
matter  what  party  has  the  handling  thereof,  whether  Demo- 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY.         273 

cratic,  Republican,  Independent,  or  Greenback.  Lead  us  not 
into  temptation  should  be  the  motto.  Men,  who  have  loose 
money,  are  inclined  to  spend  or  become  misers. 

These  two  items  would  be  a  yearly  saving  of  $20,000,000, 
which  employers  and  employed  would  soon  feel.  Surely, 
Congress  might  discover  other  leakages,  and  arrest  them  by 
just  and  economic  legislation.  When  this  is  done,  let  Con- 
gress exhort  the'employers  and  strikers  to  adjust  their  dif- 
ferences on  the  promise  of  better  times.  I  myself,  as  an 
employer,  and  friend  of  the  employed,  think  matters  might 
be  so  arranged  as  to  suit  all  interests,  if  those  who  are  now 
striking  for  higher  wages  could  but  know  the  struggles,  that 
many  of  their  employers  are  compelled  to  make,  in  order 
to  be  sure  to  be  able  to  pay  their  men,  and  leave  something 
on  their  balance-sheet  to  compensate  them  for  their  labor 
and  the  risks,  which  all  employers  are  obliged  to  meet. 
When  laborers  take  their  employers'  risk  and  troubles  into 
consideration,  they  will  rather  pity  their  employers  than  to 
throw  unnecessary  difficulties  in  their  way. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  danger,  that  threatens  our  free  in- 
stitutions, is,  that  the  strikers  will  allow  themselves  to  be 
used  by  unscrupulous  politicians,  who  will  lead  them  and 
their  country  to  destruction ;  labor  suspensions  should  be 
few  and  far  between ;  for  they  create  idleness,  which  soon 
conducts  to  corruption,  drunkenness, -and  vice.  To  contend 
for  an  eight-hour  system  of  labor  is  a  sad  mistake.  I,  as  a 
working  man,  claimed  it  as  my  privilege  to  spend  ten  and 
twelve  hours  per  day  in  bodily  and  mental  efforts  to  elevate 
the  coildition  of  those,  who  have  nothing  to  sell  but  their 
labor.  Had  I  not  done  so,  I  should  not  have  been  able  to 
found  the  Cooper  Institute. 

If  men  would  for  a  moment  consider,  that  an  eight,  instead 
of  a  ten-hour  system,  would  diminish  production  of  every 
kind  one  fifth,  or  twenty  per  cent.,  and  increase  the  price 
of  the  necessaries  of  life  in  the  same  ratio,  they  would  stop 
thinking  of  eight  hours  work  per  day  ;  for  they  would  real- 
ize, that  a  bushel  of  potatoes,  costing  SI  under  a  ten-hour 
18 


274         COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUKKENCY. 

system,  would  sell  at  $1.20  under  an  eight-hour  system  ;  so 
would  a  suit  of  clothes,  costing  $20  under  a  ten-hour  sys- 
tem, sell  for  $24  under  an  eight-hour  system ;  so  would  a 
dwelling,  renting  for  $25  per  month  under  a  ten-hour  sys- 
tem, rent  for  $30  under  an  eight-hour  system.  We  might 
multiply  examples;  but  these  will  suffice.  Such  theories 
are  attractive  to  shallow  thinkers;  but  they  only  tend  to 
disturb  social  order  and  aggravate  the  condition  of  honest 
laborers  and  mechanics,  without  benefiting  either  employers 
or  employed,  who  must  ultimately  meet  and  settle  matters, 
after  much  ill-feeling,  loss  of  time  and  production. 

As  you  are  President  of  a  bank,  you  will  allow  me  to  add 
here  the  following  suggestions  from  John  Earl  Williams, 
President  of  the  Metropolitan  Bank  of  this  city : 

"I  would. suggest :  That  Congress  assume,  at  once,  the 
inherent  sovereign  prerogative  of  a  Government,  and  exer- 
cise it  by  furnishing  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States 
with  a  uniform  national  currency.  Surely  the  people,  and 
the  people  only,  have  a  natural  right  to  all  the  advantages, 
emolument,  or  income  that  may  inure  from  the  issue  of 
either  $1,000  bonds  with  interest,  or  $10  notes  without, 
based  on  the  faith  and  credit  of  the  nation  ! " 
I  remain,  yours  faithfully, 

PETEK  COOPEK. 

Hon.  A.  A.  Hardenbergh,  M.O. 


After  giving  my  own  efforts  in  favor  of  a  strictly  national 
currency  and  against  monopolies,  I  cannot  help  adding  some 
of  the  efforts  of  statesmen,  divines,  journalists  and  finan- 
ciers, who  warn  the  people  of  the  dangers,  that  threaten 
our  country. 

Letter  from  Mr.  Calhoun  to  a  committee,  who  had  in- 
vited him  to  a  public  dinner,  in  South  Carolina : 

"  FORT  HILL,  September  6,  1838. 

GENTLEMEN  :  I  have  been  honored  by  your  note  of  27th 
of  August,  inviting  me  to  participate  in  a  dinner  to  be  given 


COIN   AND   PAPER   CUEEENCY.  275 

to  your  Senators  and  the  members  of  your  delegation  in 
Congress,  who  have  concurred  with  them  on  the  great  and 
agitating  question  of  the  day. 

The  great  distance  and  my  engagements  compel  me  re- 
luctantly to  decline  your  kind  and  flattering  invitation. 

It  is  difficult  to  over-estimate  the  importance  of  the  great 
measure,  which  now  engrosses  the  public  attention  ;  and 
those,  who  hold  it  up,  as  a  question  of  small  magnitude, 
while  they  denounce  it  and  all,  who  support  it,  in  the  most 
unmeasured  and  bitter  terms,  act  neither  sincerely  nor  hon- 
estly. In  whatever  light  it  may  be  viewed,  it  is  a  question 
of  the  first  magnitude ;  even  more  so  in  its  political  and 
moral  bearings,  than  its  fiscal  and  commercial — the  light  in 
which  it  has  been  principally  regarded.  I  feel  that  I  hazard 
nothing  in  asserting,  that  the  banking  system,  through  its 
connection  with  the  Government,  is  affecting,  and  if  not 
arrested,  will  affect  one  of  the  greatest  revolutions  in  the 
political  and  moral  condition  of  the  world,  of  which  history 
has  left  any  record  ;  and,  let  me  add,  one  of  the  most  per- 
nicious. If  permitted  to  progress,  it  will  elevate  the  money 
power  above  all  others — above  thrones  and  principalities, 
laws  and  constitutions.  It  has  already  acquired  in  our  coun- 
try an  almost  unlimited  control  over  the  fortunes  of  indi- 
viduals and  the  business  of  the  community.  By  granting  or 
withholding  favors;  by  expanding  or  contracting  the  cur- 
rency, fortunes  are  made  or  lost,  and  the  whole  business  of 
the  community,  through  every  channel  or  industry  is  made 
to  prosper  or  decay.  Neither  good  nor  bad  seasons,  neither 
the  smiles  nor  the  frowns  of  Providence,  exercise  a  more 
controlling  influence  for  good  or  evil,  over  {he  fortunes  of 
individuals  or  the  community.  It  is  in  vain,  that  the  bounty 
of  heaven  shall  bless  the  land  with  seasons  of  plenty  and 
health,  a  sudden  contraction,  or  a  suspension  of  payment 
spreads  ruin  and  desolation  around,  and  plunges  into  poverty 
thousands,  who,  but  a  moment  before,  believed  themselves  to 
be  independent,  and  in  affluent  circumstances. 

"No  one,  who  has  observed  the  operations  of  the  last  twenty 


276  COIN  AND   PAPEE  CTJEEENCY. 

years,  can  doubt  the  truth  of  this  picture,  and  that  the  power, 
as  great  as  it  now  is,  has  not  reacl>ed  the  maximum  of  its 
increase.  Now  I  would  ask,  is  there  a  man  so  blind,  as  not 
to  see  the  debasing  consequences,  which  must  follow,  morally 
and  politically,  by  thus  elevating  the  money  above  all  other 
powers  in  this  State,  and  giving  it  such  overwhelming  con- 
trol ?  Can  it  be  done,  without  debasing  the  noble  and  inde- 
pendent spirit,  which  created  our  free  institutions,  arid  with- 
out which  it  is  impossible  to  maintain  them  ?  Can  it  be 
done  without  spreading  over  the  land  one  all-absorbing  spirit 
of  gain,  which  shall  extinguish  all  the  more  elevated  feelings 
of  our  nature,  and  raise  him,  who  may  dispense  the  favors 
of  banks,  in  public  estimation,  over  the  philosopher,  the 
statesman,  the  divine,  the  patriot,  the  warrior,  or  those  en- 
gaged in  the  active  and  productive  pursuits  of  society  ?  Can 
this  be  done  without  inverting  the  order  of  the  moral  world, 
and  bringing  down  in  the  end,  on  the  people,  who  may  have 
the  folly  and  the  weakness  to  permit  it,  unheard  of  calami- 
ties ? 

To  guard  against  these,  it  is  clear,  that  something  must 
be  done  to  prevent  mere  private  corporations  from  exercis- 
ing such  unlimited  control  over  the  currency  of  the  country, 
and,  through  it,  the  fortunes  of  individuals  and  the  com- 
munity. To  effect  this  I  can  imagine  no  measure  more  sim- 
ple, effectual  and  practicable,  than  the  entire  and  final 
divorce  of  the  unholy  and  unconstitutional  connection  be- 
tween Government  and  Bank — the  great  measure  of  de- 
liverance and  liberty,  as  happily  expressed  by  the  able  and 
patriotic  statesman  (General  Gordon),  who  will  have  the 
lasting  honor  of  having  first  proposed  it  in  Congress.  This 
once  adopted,  the  whole  system  may  be  gradually  and  safely 
reformed,  as  experience  and  reflection  may  point  out,  and 
the  country  saved  from  unnumbered  woes. 

Permit  me  in  conclusion  to  offer  the  following  senti- 
ment: 

The  great  and  leading  measure  of  the  age — It  rests  upon 
the  imperishable  foundation  of  truth,  and  though  it  may  be 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCT.  277 

defeated  at  first,  its  final  triumph,  if  supported  with  energy 
and  perseverance,  is  certain. 

With  great  respect,  I  am,  etc. 

J.  C.  CALHOTJN. 
Calvin  Graves,  Esq.,  and  others  of  the  Committee." 

Mr.  Chase  in  a  report  said : 

"  It  has  been  well  questioned  by  the  most  eminent  states- 
men, whether  a  currency  of  bank  notes,  issued  by  local  in- 
stitutions under  State  laws,  is  not,  in  fact,  prohibited  by  the 
National  Constitution.  Such  emissions  certainly  fall  within 
the  spirit,  if  not  within  the  letter,  of  the  constitutional  pro- 
hibition of  the  emission  of  bills  of  credit  by  the  States,  and 
of  the  making  by  them  of  anything,  except  gold  and  silver 
coin,  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts." 

However  this  may  be,  it  is  too  clear  to  be  reasonably  dis- 
puted, that  Congress,  under  its  constitutional  powers  to  lay 
taxes,  to  regulate  commerce  and  the  value  of  coin,  pos- 
sesses ample  authority  to  control  the  credit  circulation, 
which  enters  so  largely  into  the  transactions  of  commerce 
and  affects  in  so  many  ways  the  value  of  coin.  In  the  judg- 
ment of  the  Secretary,  the  time  has  arrived,  when  Congress 
should  exercise  this  authority. 

And  years  later,  the  Hon.  E.  G.  Spaulding,  although  a 
National  Bank  President,  branded  in  his  "  Financial  History 
of  the  War,"  (page  188)  the  bank  issue  as  "  an  inflation  of 
the  currency " — and  therefore,  not  only  useless,  but  mis- 
chievous. 

John  Earl  Williams,  President  of  the  Metropolitan  Na- 
tional Bank  of  New  York,  a  banker  second  to  no  other  in 
experience,  success  or  position,  says : 

"  I  would  suggest  that  Congress  assume,  at  once,  the  in- 
herent, sovereign  prerogative  of  a  Government  of  the  peo- 
ple, by  the  people  and  for  the  people,  and  exercise  it  by 
furnishing  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States  with  a 
uniform  national  ciirrency. 

Surely  the  people,  and  the  people  only,  have  a  natural 


278  COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

right  to  all  the  advantages,  emolument  or  income,  that  may 
inure  from  the  issue  of  either  one  thousand  dollar  bonds, 
with  interest,  or  ten  dollar  notes  without,  based  on  the  faith 
and  credit  of  the  nation. 

This  principle,  simple,  clear  and  undeniable,  ought  to  be 
recognized  as  fundamental,  and  the  only  safe  and  proper 
basis,  on  which  may  securely  rest  all  the  circulating  medium 
of  the  country ;  for  the  sole  benefit  of  all  the  people,  and  not, 
as  now,  for  the  profit  of  a  class  of  stockholders." 

As  some  of  my  early  theoretic  lessons  in  finance  come 
from  Albert  Gallatin,  who  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
under  Jefferson  and  Madison,  I  quote  a  report  of  a  meeting  of 
"  The  New  York  Board  of  Currency  "  from  the  "  Courier 
and  Enquirer."  As  Gallatin  died,  1S49,  this  report  was 
written  over  thirty  years  ago  : 

NEW  YORK  BOARD  OF  CURRENCY. 

PETER  COOPER,  Esq.,  First  Yice-President,  occupied  the 
Chair,  in  the  absence  of  the  President,  Mr.  GALLATIN,  who 
is  in  Europe. 

A  Communication  was  read  relative  to  the  objects  of  the 
Board,  from  an  aged  merchant  of  great  experience,  retired 
in  the  Isle  of  "Wight.  He  referred  to  the  injurious  influences 
exerted  upon  the  productive  industry  of  Great  Britain  by 
increasing  taxation  and  the  excesses  of  the  credit  system  in 
that  country,  and  advised  earnest  attention  in  the  United 
States  to  the  establishment  and  maintenance  of  a  sound 
currency,  the  best  means  of  securing  steady  progress  in  the 
development  of  all  the  resources  of  the  country.  The  letter 
concluded : — "  I  most  sincerely  wish  you  all  possible  success 
in  your  endeavors  to  establish  the  Banking  system  upon  a 
safe  and  solid  foundation.  It  is  the  most  important  and 
patriotic  mission  you  could  undertake.  America  is  more 
happily  circumstanced  in  many  respects  perhaps  than  any 
other  nation.  Not  being  burdened  and  embarrassed  with  a 
heavy  debt,  you  are  left  free  to  pursue  the  course,  that  true 


COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  279 

wisdom  shall  point  out,  and  it  would  be  no  easy  task  for  any 
one  to  estimate  all  the  national  advantages  which  now  lie 
within  your  reach." 

"  The  Recording  Secretary  submitted  mathematical  dia- 
grams, prepared  by  Mr.  John  V.  Yatman,  who  is  engaged 
in  perfecting  a  series  of  illustrations  of  American  commerce, 
currency,  and  prices  since  1790,  in  which  the  statistics  of 
each  of  the  seventy  years  are  presented  in  a  condensed 
form.  , 

MR.  YATMAN  explained  the  mathematical  principles  gov- 
erning him  in  the  efforts  he  is  making  to  demonstrate  the 
practical  operation  of  the  laws  of  currency  and  prices.  The 
result  is  a  complete  vindication  of  the  views  promulgated  by 
this  Board. 

HON.  GEORGE  OPDYKE  spoke  of  the  rapid  progress  which 
sound  views  of  currency  were  making  throughout  the 
country.  '  He  had  long  since  demonstrated  to  his  own  satis- 
faction, with  mathematical  certainty,  the  truth  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  currency  advocated  by  this  Board.  Their  truth  is 
advocated  by  experienced  bankers  and  merchants,  and  it  is 
a  great  error  to  suppose  that  a  sound  system  of  banking  is  on 
the  average,  less  productive  of  profit  than  an  erroneous  sys- 
tem. The  latter  revolves  around  a  vortex  of  bankruptcy  into 
which  it  is  constantly  liable  to  be  plunged  upon  the  recurrence 
of  adverse  movements  in  trade  and  commerce.  The  former 
is  uniformly  and  permanently  remunerative,  and  of  great 
advantage  to  the  community.  It  is  a  gratifying  fact, 
identified  with  the  currency  question,  that  the  interests  of 
the  people  and  of  the  Banks  go  hand-in-hand  in  favor  of  a 
sound  system.  There  is  no  clashing  of  interests  in  the  path 
of  duty  which  has  been  marked  out  by  true  principles,  in 
this  case. 

He  spoke  with  approbation  of  the  work  which  Mr.  Yatman 
had  undertaken.  He  considered  it  important  because  it 
would  establish,  by  positive  demonstration,  upon  the  basis 
of  actual  experience,  those  truths  in  monetary  science  upon 
which  so  much  difference  of  opinion  had  existed. 


280  COIN   AND   PAPER  CURRENCY. 

HON.  JOHN  COCHRANE,  Member  of  Congress,  and  Chair- 
man of  the  Committee  on  Commerce  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, being  called  upon,  referred  to  the  interest  he  felt 
in  the  discussions  of  the  Board.  He  had  found  that  there 
is  a  great  difference  between  the  theories  of  money  and  the 
practical  influence  exerted  by  money  upon  all  the  economical 
interests  of  a  community,  and  in  this  Board  he  found  that 
questions  of  money  were  discussed  in  the  light  of  practical 
experience.  Once  illuminate  the  public  mind,  expose  the 
errors  of  those  systems  which  seek  to  confer  the  attributes 
of  money  upon  a  fiction,  and  error  falls  dead,  the  appliances 
of  the  opponents  of  truths  perish.  This  Board  is  in  the  cor- 
rect line  of  truth,  and  as  true  principles  of  currency  are 
applied,  so  the  correct  line  of  national  development  will  be 
discovered.  We  are  in  the  focus  of  a  vast  future  civilization. 
A  deviation  now  from  Christian  truth  will  be  an  eternal  loss 
to  that  future.  Guided  by  truth,  with  our  boundless  com- 
mercial resources  and  growing  population,  wrhen  money,  the 
instrument  of  commerce,  goes  forth  in  its  purity,  how  vast 
will  be  the  results !  If  failure  should  again  overwhelm 
us,  the  vitality  of  truth  would  reveal  the  line  of  duty  amid 
every  wreck  and  disaster.  Without  the  financial  wisdom 
that  is  guided  by  experience,  our  commerce  will  continue 
exposed  to  disasters.  Hence,  he  concluded,  the  work  of 
currency  reform  is  part  of  the  Christian  progress  of  the 
world." 

PETER  COOPER,  Esq.,  referred  to  the  opinions  which  had 
been  expressed  by  the  immortal  Washington.  Not  the 
amount  of  currency,  but  the  Teal  worth  exhibited  in  the 
rapidity  of  circulation,  is  what  constitutes  a  sound  circula- 
ting medium.  A  fictitious  currency  was  termed  by  Washing- 
ton *  the  shadow  without  the  substance.' 

"Mr.  Yatrnan's  mathematical  illustrations  were  referred 
to  a  Committee,  consisting  of  Messrs.  William  A.  Booth, 
Joseph  Lawrence,  Wilson  G.  Hunt,  Benjamin  H.  Field, 
George  Opdyke,  and  John  Eadie. 

The  Board  adjourned  for  two  weeks." 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CURRENCY.  281 

"  To  THE  EDITOR  OF  THE  TELEGRAM  : 

The  substitution  of  greenbacks  for  national  bank  nqtes  is 
admitted  to  be  the  pivot,  on  which  the  money  question 
turns.  This  point  is  strongly  urged  in  the  valuable  writings 
of  W.  H.  Winder,  who  says,  in  the  following  synopsis  of  his 
"  Resumption  Factors :" — First,  an  ability  to  meet  all  specie 
demands ;  second,  that  said  demand  is  limited  to  the  foreign 
debt ;  third,  that  gold,  equal  to  our  wants,  cannot  be  accumu- 
lated with  said  debt  outstanding ;  fourth,  that  the  extinction 
of  said  debt  would  secure  a  genuine  specie  system,  making 
our  paper  irresistibly  on  par  with  gold ;  fifth,  that  this  spe- 
cific can  alone  be  gained  by  developing  our  resources,  keep- 
ing the  people  employed,  making  the  exports  double  the 
imports  and  substituting  greenbacks  for  national  bank  notes. 

Statistics  show,  that  the  national  and  State  Government 
debts  and  expenses  are,  per  capita,  $150  per  annum,  or  '$3 
per  week,  or  50c.  per  day.  It  is  also  seen,  that  national 
banks  in  thirty  years  will  suck  from  the  productive  industries 
$400,000,000  more  than  the  entire  public  debt,  or  $2,450,- 
000,000,  every  dollar  of  which  would  be  saved  by  the  exclu- 
sive use  of  the  people's  greenback.  Manifestly  greenbacks 
by  the  people  and  for  the  people,  would  alone  make  labor 
in  demand,  ending  strikes  and  hard  times,  scattering  peace 
and  plenty  over  the  land. 

The  venerable  Peter  Cooper,  in  his  letter  to  President 
Hayes  of  the  6th  of  August,  wisely  states : — Government, 
by  a  judicious  tariff,  can  do  much  toward  promoting  indus- 
tries and  encouraging  capital  for  manufacturing,  since  we 
cannot  as  a  nation  buy  anything  cheap,  that  leaves  our  own 
good  raw  materials  unused  and  our  own  labor  unemployed. 

Right  shall  rule  and  conquer  error, 

Ballots  vanquish  every  wrong, 
Money  kings  be  struck  with  terror, 

Freedom  be  the  nation's  song. 

WILSON  WATSON." 
August  13,  18T7. 


282  COIN  AND   PAPEK  CTJEKENCY. 

FROM  SWING'S  SPEECH  ON  KESUMPTION,  1877. 

"  No  greater  injury  could  be  inflicted  on  a  people  by  its 
Government,  than  the  reduction  of  the  volume  of  currency, 
to  which  the  business  and  values  of  the  country  were  ad- 
justed. To  decrease  the  value  of  money  was  to  strike  at  the 
interests  of  the  whole  body  of  the  people.  No  man  could 
engage  profitably  in  merchandise,  while  the  values,  which  he 
was  handling,  were  failing,  etc.  .  .  . 

I  do  not  appeal  to  that  money  power,  which  seeks  its  for- 
tune over  the  wrecked  happiness  and  accumulations  of  its 
fellow-men — a  power,  to  which  our  unhappy  civil  war  gave 
birth — which  has  grown  so  enormous  through  unjust  financial 
legislation ;  which  now  <  bestrides  our  narrow  world  like  a 
colossus,'  which  subsidizes  the  press,  which  captures  states- 
men and  parties,  and  makes  them  its  subservient  tools; 
which  hounds  down  and  villifies  every  public  man,  who 
dares  to  raise  his  voice  against  it.  That  power,  in  the  flush 
and  arrogance  of  its  enormous  and  ill-gotten  gains,  has  a 
heart  of  stone,  not  to  be  touched  by  human  sympathy  and 
compassion.  I  appeal  to  the  masses,  to  their  faithful  Repre- 
sentatives (I  thank  God)  of  both  political  parties  on  this 
floor.  The  true  aim  of  government  is  the  greatest  good  to 
the  greatest  number,  and  whoever  by  legislation  or  otherwise 
changes  the  value  of  a  contract,  is  as  accursed  as  he,  who  re- 
moves his  neighbor's  landmarks.  For  twelve  years  past  the 
financial  legislation  of  this  country  has  been  dictated,  one 
would  think,  in  Lombard  Street  or  Wall  Street,  and  the  peo- 
ple have  been  plundered  by  every  fresh  enactment.  They 
have  suffered  the  fate  of  the  giant  Gulliver,  when  tied  down 
by  the  Lilliputians.  Thank  God  they  are  about  to  rise — to 
burst  the  bonds,  which  their  petty  foes  have  fastened  upon 
them,  while  sleeping,  and  to  walk  abroad  again  in  their  own 
majesty,"  etc.  .  .  . 


COIN  AND   PAPEE  CUEEENCY.  283 

SENATOR  VOOKHEES  ON  THE  FISCAL  POLICY  OF  THE  GOV- 
ERNMENT, DECEMBER  16,  1881. 

"  MR.  PRESIDENT  :  It  is  now  nearly  nine  years  since  silver 
money  was  destroyed  in  this  country  by  the  repeal  of  the 
law  of  1792,  authorizing  its  coinage.  This  famous  act  of 
fraud  upon  a  long  and  well-settled  financial  policy  and 
of  wrong  and  injustice  to  the  business  and  labor  of  the 
American  people,  was  consummated  on  the  12th  day  of 
February,  1873.  And  then  for  five  years  and  sixteen  days 
it  remained  upon  the  statute-books  to  curse  the  land.  It 
took  the  people  that  length  of  time  to  discover,  overtake 
and  wipe  out  this  act  of  unwarranted  and  clandestine  legis- 
lation. But,  when  the  evil  work  came  to  be  fully  compre- 
hended throughout  the  country,  the  popular  voice  was 
neither  slow  nor  timid  in  making  itself  heard.  It  did  not 
salute  the  ears  of  legislators  with  the  soft  music  of  a  sighing 
zephyr,  dallying  with  summer  flowers ;  it  came  here  rather 
with  the  fierce  and  commanding  majesty  of  the  hurricane  in 
its  wrath  ;  it  came  from  every  seat  of  honest  enterprise  and 
industry  ;  from  the  farmer,  the  manufacturer,  the  mechanic, 
the  merchant,  the  trader,  t^e  wage  laborer,  from  every  class 
of  business  people,  and  it  came  breathing  forth  the  indig- 
nation of  a  constituency,  who  found  themselves  betrayed 
and  juggled  in  a  matter  of  domestic  policy,  vital  to  their 
prosperity  and  happiness. 

On  the  28th  day  of  February,  1878,  the  voice  of  the 
American  people  was  obeyed  in  these  halls,  and  silver 
money,  the  money  of  "Washington,  the  unit  of  value,  de- 
vised by  Jefferson,  the  money  of  great  minds  in  avery  age 
of  civilized  man,  the  money  of  the  Constitution,  the  money 
of  every  period  and  of  every  political  party  of  this  Repub- 
lic, until  a  recent  day,  was  restored  by  law  to  coinage  and 
to  circulation.  Let  that  day  be  remembered  forever  in  the 
American  calendar  as  one,  on  which  a  great  victory  was 
obtained,  the  first  in  many  years,  by  the  industrious,  pro- 
ductive masses  over  the  usury-gathering,  idle,  unproductive 


284         COIN  AND  PAPER  CUEEENCY. 

few.  This  triumph  of  popular  justice  was  not  the  less  pre- 
cious to  honest  and  generous  minds,  because  of  the  scenes 
and  circumstances,  which  attended  it.  The  act  for  the  res- 
toration of  silver  money  was  passed  through  both  branches 
of  Congress  in  the  face  of  prophecies  of  evil  to  the  coun- 
try, etc.  .  .  . 

When  their  pretended  concern  for  the  welfare  of  the 
country,  and  their  real  concern  for  their  own  enormous  pro- 
fits, were  exposed  and  disregarded  here,  they  bent  their 
faces  confidently  toward  the  Executive  Department  of  the 
Government,  that  last  refuge,  as  it  seems,  for  special  privi- 
leges to  favored  classes:  They  were  not  mistaken;  they 
did  not  make  their  appeal  to  that  Department  in  vain, 
etc.  .  .  . 

In  defiance  of  the  public  will,  in  contempt  of  the  policy 
of  the  Government  for  more  than  four-score  years,  and  in 
open  disregard  of  the  wants  of  trade  and  business,  the  ad- 
ministration of  Mr.  Hayes  sent  to  us  his  puny  protest 
against  the  dreadful  consequences  of  silver  money.  His 
veto,  however,  was  swept  aside  by  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States,  as  people  brush  cobwebs  out  of  their  way. 
The 'bill,  restoring  the  silver  dollar  to  its  place  in  the  coin- 
age laws  of  the  Government,  was  enacted  into  a  law,  .over 
all  combined  opposition,  by  the  tremendous  vote  of  196  to 
73  in  the  House,  and  46  to  19  in  the  Senate. 

And  now,  sir,  what  response  has  the  business  of  the  coun- 
try, during  nearly  four  years  past,  made  to  the  evil  and  ve- 
hement prognostications  against  the  use  of  silver  money  ? 
Has  it  brought  ruin,  has  it  brought  calamity,  has  it  brought 
distress  to  the  people  ?  "Who  has  the  hardihood  to  say  so  ? 
On  the  contrary,  behold  a  contrast  in  the  condition  of  the 
country.  The  five  years,  during  which  silver  did  not  exist 
as  legal  currency,  were  years  of  the  most  appalling  financial 
disaster  ever  known  in  American  history.  I  am  speaking 
now  of  what  all  men  know,  and  stating  that,  which  no  man 
will  deny  ?  From  1873  to  1878  there  was  a  period  of 
mourning  over  lost  property,  lost  homes  and  lost  labor,  in 


COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY.  285 

every  active  business  community  in  the  United  States, 
etc.  .  .  . 

The  passage  of  the  Silver  Bill  vwas  accompanied  by  the 
groans  and  lamentations  of  the  associated  national  banks, 
expressed  in  many  a  sombre  memorial,  petition,  remon- 
strance and  expostulation,  laid  before  Congress,  etc.  .  .  . 

The  Act  of  Congress,  by  which  silver  was  dishonored,  was 
a  prominent  feature  in  a  most  unrighteous  and  criminal  en- 
deavor to  so  contract,  cut  down  and  diminish  the  amount  of 
money  in  use  among  the  people,  that  the  hoarded  millions 
of  the  banker  and  the  capitalist  would  have  more  power  in 
the  affairs  of  men,  than  all  the  other  powers  of  this  Govern- 
ment combined.  The  dream  of  certain  minds,  in  this  coun- 
try, has  been  for  many  years  past  to  create  in  fact,  if  not  in 
name,  an  order  of  aristocracy,  a  privileged  class,  with  their 
rank  and  importance  founded,  not  upon  intellect,  culture, 
refinement,  grace  or  goodness,  but  upon  their  success  in  the 
practice  of  avarice,  the  meanest  and  most  sordid  passion  of 
the  human  heart  ever  spoken  of  in  the  heavens  above  or  the 
earth  below.  In  furtherance  of  this  purpose  the  possession 
of  money,  especially  in  considerable  sums,  being  a  badge  of 
the  new  nobility,  the  common  people  were  to  have  as  little 
of  it  as  possible,  and  for  that  little  to  be  dependent  entirely 
on  the  lords  of  capital,  etc.  .  .  . 

The  Secretary  in  trying  to  make  the  impression,  that  sil- 
ver money  is  a  drug  and  a  failure,  and  that  the  people  do 
not  want  it.  Who  can  justify  this  assault  upon  the  exist- 
ence of  a  hundred  millions  of  currency,  possessed  of  the 
same  purchasing  power  as  gold  ?  I  denounce  it,  and  chal- 
lenge the  friends  of  such  a  policy,  if  it  has  any  here,  to 
come  to  its  rescue.  Let  those,  who  will  or  dare,  stand  forth 
as  its  champions.  This  issue,  thus  forced  without  reason  or 
justice  upon  the  country,  will  be  met  by  the  country,  and 
its  authors  will  be  sternly  rebuked. 

Such  a  movement,  however,  against  financial  stability  and 
security,  must  necessarily  have  a  powerful  inspiration  in 
some  deeply  interested  quarter.  We  are  not  left  in  doubt 


286  COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

at  all  as  to  the  source  of  that  inspiration.  In  connection 
with  the  proposed  retirement  of  silver,  and  in  order  to  quiet 
the  fear  in  the  public  mind  of  a  destructive  financial  con- 
traction, the  Secretary,  as  the  mouthpiece  of  the  banks,  is 
good  enough  to  say  in  his  report : 

'  There  need  be  no  apprehension  of  a  too  limited  paper 
circulation.  The  national  banks  are  ready  to  issue  their 
notes  in  such  quantities  as  the  laws  of  trade  demand,  and  as 
security  therefor  the  Government  will  hold  an  equivalent  in 
its  own  bonds,'  etc. 

We  are  told,  that  the  national  banks  are  ready  to  issue 
their  notes  in  place  of  the  silver  currency,  marked  for  de- 
struction, and  to  do  so  in  such  quantity  as  the  laws  of  trade 
demand,  the  banks  themselves,  of  course,  being  the  judges 
of  the  laws  of  trade  and  of  their  demands.  The  country 
is  to  depend,  in  other  words,  on  the  interest  or  the  generosity 
of  the  banks  for  its  supply  of  money,  etc.  .  .  . 

The  question,  here  presented  by  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  is  whether  to  such  minds  shall  be  surrendered  the 
entire  control  of  supply  and  circulation  of  the  currency. 
Who  is  ready  to  support  such  a  proposition  ?  Has  national 
bank  money  been  furnished  at  so  little  expense  to  the  people, 
that  they  want  it  to  take  the  place  of  all  other  kinds  ?  I  do 
not  wonder,  that  the  banks  want  a  total  monopoly  of  the 
currency ;  but  it  is  astounding  to  me,  that  taxpayers  should 
be  willing  for  them  to  have  any  control  at  all  of  that  vital 
question.  The  desire  of  the  banks  to  destroy  silver  and 
greenbacks  is  very  easily  understood,  etc.  .  .  . 

It  is  difficult,  in  moderate  terms,  to  characterize  such  a 
recommendation.  It  is  a  wanton  and,  to  my  mind,  a  criminal 
assault  upon  the  financial  stability  and  the  business  prosperity 
of  the  whole  country,  etc. 

But  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  does  not  stop  with  the 
recommendation  I  have  cited,  for  the  destruction  of  good 
money  in  the  form  of  silver  certificates ;  he  modestly  asks 
for  the  repeal  of  the  act  of  February  28, 1878,  providing  for 
the  coinage  of  silver,  and  requests,  that  the  whole  subject  be 


COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  287 

left  by  Congress  to  his  discretion  to  coin  much  or  little  or 
none  at  all,  as  he  may  think  best.  His  language  is  as  fol- 
lows: 

'  It  is  therefore  recommended,  that  the  provision  for  the 
coinage  of  a  fixed  amount»each  month  be  repealed,  and  the 
Secretary  be  authorized  to  coin  only  so  much,  as  will  be  ne- 
cessary to  supply  the  demand.' 

It  is  very  obvious,  that  the  object  of  this  recommenda- 
tion, on  the  part  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  is  to 
drive  silver  entirely  out  of  circulation.  This  will  be  seen 
from  the  fact,  that  he  attempts  in  his  report  to  show,  that 
there  is  no  demand  for  silver,  and  aims  to  make  a  false  im- 
pression, that  it  has  been  difficult  to  put  silver  money  in 
circulation.  I  quote  as  follows  from  his  report : 

'  As  required  by  the  act  of  February  28,  18T8,  the  De- 
partment has  caused  to  be  coined  into  standard  silver  dollars 
each  month  at  least  §2,000,000  in  value  of  bullion  of  that 
metal.  Constant  efforts  have  been  made  to  give  circulation 
to  this  coin,  the  expense  of  transferring  it  to  all  points,  where 
it  was  called  for,  having  been  paid  by  the  Government. 
Only  about  thirty-four  millions  are  now  in  circulation,  leav- 
ing more  than  sixty-six  millions  in  the  vaults,  and  there 
is  no  apparent  reason  why  its  circulation  should  rapidly 
increase.' 

Sir,  what  must  be  thought  of  the  candor  or  the  intel- 
ligence of  this  public  officer  in  speaking  of  sixty-six  millions 
of  silver  in  the  vaults  with  no  apparent  reason  for  an  in- 
crease of  its  circulation,  when  in  point  of  fact  every  dollar 
of  it  is  now  in  circulation  in  the  form  of  a  paper  currency 
resting  upon  a  specie  basis  ?  etc. 

The  profits  of  national  banking,  under  our  present  system 
have  been,  and  continue  to  be,  something  almost  fabulous, 
and  it  is  natural,  that  those  engaged  in  it,  should  desire  to 
expand  their  operations  over  the  entire  currency  of  the 
country.  This  is  the  solution  of  their  ceaseless  agitation 
of  more  power  over  the  finances.  But  a  short  time  ago 
they  were  demanding,  through  the  Executive  and  the  then 


288  COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY. 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  now  the  Senator  from  Ohio 
(Mr.  Sherman),  that  the  legal  tender  debt  paying  quality  of ' 
over  three  hundred  and  forty-six  millions  of  greenbacks, 
then  at  par  with  gold,  should  be  withdrawn,  and  that  this 
money,  costing  the  people  nothing  for  its  circulation,  should 
be  left  to  perish  by  the  wayside.  This  was  to  be  done  in 
order,  that  the  banks  might  issue  their  notes  in  its  place 
'  in  such  quantity  as  the  laws  of  trade  demand,'  according 
to  the  broad  discretion,  now  conceded  by  the  Secretary. 
Let  us  look,  however,  for  a  moment  in  this  connection  at 
the  cost  to  the  people  of  bank  note  currency,  and  see  whether 
a  circulating  medium  so  expensive  should  supplant  all  others. 
The  bank  note  circulation  has  averaged  in  round  numbers 
about  $280,000,000  during  the  last  eighteen  years.  Govern- 
ment bonds,  owned  by  the  bankers  and  drawing  interest 
from  the  labor  of  the  people,  were  pledged  to  the  amount 
of  over  $320,000,000  for  the  security  of  this  circulation. 

The  interest,  paid  by  the  people  and  received  by  the 
banks  on  these  bonds,  may  be  stated  at  an  average  of  not 
less  than  $17,000,000  a  year;  this,  for  eighteen  years, 
amounting  to  over  $300,000,000  for  the  blessings  of  bank 
found  money.  By  adding  to  this  interest  account  the  profits 
of  the  banks  on  their  circulation  and  their  deposits,  it  will  be 
that  they  have  received  enough  gains  from  the  pockets  of 
the  people,  since  their  creation,  to  pay  off  two-thirds  at  least 
of  the  national  debt.  And  these  vast  sums  have  been  paid 
to  the  banks  simply  for  the  privilege  of  receiving  through 
their  hands  a  little  more  than  one-third  of  our  currency,  of 
no  better  quality  than  the  other  currencies,  for  whose  cir- 
culation there  was  no  tax  on  anybody.  Is  this  such  a  show- 
ing as  to  entice  Congress  to  abandon  the  whole  financial 
question  to  the  banks  ?  etc.  .  .  . 

Against  the  present  paroxysm  of  greed  on  the  part  of 
corporate  and  consolidated  banking  capital,  demanding 
through  one  of  the  departments  of  the  Government  the  dis- 
grace and  the  overthrow  of  silver  money,  I  invoke  the  judg- 
ment and  co-operation  of  all  the  busy  multitudes  of  indus- 


COIN   AND   PAPER  CURRENCY.  289 

trious  men  and  women  throughout  all  this  broad,  progres- 
sive land,"  etc.    .    .    . 


A  NEW  BUSINESS  FOB  NATIONAL  BANKS. 

» 

(New  York  Herald,  January  28,  1882.) 

"  Whenever  a  financial  measure  is  proposed  in  Congress, 
ostensibly,  perhaps  really,  for  the  public  good,  but  by  which 
the  national  banks  may  possibly  benefit,  a  very  howl  is 
raised  over  the  country,  crying  out  that  nothing  should  be 
done,  which  will  add  to  their  already  great  strength  and 
vast  influence.  The  various  bills  before  Congress  on  mat- 
ters, connected  with  the  public  funds,  are  closely  watched 
for  hidden  evidences  of  national  bank  jobbery,  and  the  pass- 
ing of  necessary  measures  is  often  delayed  by  the  close  in- 
spection of  these  financial  detectives.  Congressman  Till- 
man,  it  would  seem,  has, .  however,  quite  evaded  the  close 
scrutiny  of  a  little  bill,  now  before  the  House,  to  authorize 
national  banks  to  make  loans  upon  mortgage  of  real  estate. 
On  its  face  it  is  a  harmless  affair ;  but  it  is  really  a  most 
dangerous  bill,  which  should  be  carefully  inquired  into  and 
combated  by  believers  in  a  safe  and  conservative  system  of 
banking.  It  relieves  the  banks  of  the  restriction,  now  im- 
posed on  the  investment  of  their  funds,  enables  them  to 
enter  the  real  estate  market  as  speculators,  allows  them  to 
invest  in  mortgages  of  any  and  all  kinds,  does  not  bar  di- 
rectors from  loaning  the  funds  of  the  bank  to  a  member  of 
the  direction,  and,  in  fact,  permits  them  to  do  what  they  will 
without  let  or  hindrance  in  negotiating  loans  on  good,  bad 
or  indifferent  real  estate  security.  It  opens  the  door  to 
worthless  investments  and  to  financial  knavery  of  various 
kinds,  and  threatens  to  inaugurate  a  new  business  for 
national  banks,  for  which  they  were  not  organized,  which 
is  beyond  the  limits  of  their  legitimate  functions,  and 
which  can  only  breed  distrust  in  their  ultimate  soundness, 
19 


290  COIN   AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

and  will  eventually  create  serious  trouble  in  the  business 
community." 


"  Dr.  Newman  preached  to  a  large  congregation,  in  his 
church  on  Madison  Avenue,  on  abuses  of  partisan  rule  in 
New  York,  and  the  moral  responsibility  of  our  citizens. 
His  text  was  Exodus,  xviii.,  21 — "  'Thou  shalt  provide  out 
of  all  the  people  able  men,  such  as  fear  God,  men  of  truth, 
hating  covetousness,  and  place  over  them  to  be  rulers.' 

The  great  need  of  the  honr,  he  said,  is  a  political  con- 
science, which  will  respond  to* every  voice  of  duty  and  of 
justice.  Each  man  should  have  a  conception  of  his  clear 
political  duties,  a  realization  of  his  individual  responsibility 
in  the  issues  of  an  election,  a  manifest  interest  in  the  moral 
character  of  officials,  not  unlike  that,  which  he  feels  in  the 
character  of  the  minister  of  his  church,  the  teacher  of  his 
children  and  the  agent  of  his  business. 

Two  objections  are  offered  in  apology  for  the  non -perfor- 
mance of  our  sacred  politico-religious  duty — the  uncongeni- 
ality  of  politics  and  the  lack  of  time  to  attend  thereto.  A 
man  might  as  well  plead  the  unpleasantness  to  pay  his 
debts,  to  keep  his  bridal  vows,  to  obey  his  God.  A  man, 
who  boasts  /  never  vote  might  better  boast  1  never  pray,  for 
prayers  and  votes  are  always  the  same  before  the  bar  of 
God.  Do  you  plead,  that  the  professed  politician  is  so 
degraded,  the  caucus  so  low  and  the  Convention  so  corrupt  ? 
Plead  the  same  objections  against  business  associations.  A 
politician  is  a  saint  to  some  business  men.  Clean  out  the 
politician  and  improve  the  Convention.  If  Christ  came  into 
this  world  of  sin  to  save  it,  the  saint  should  go  to  the  caucus 
to  redeem  it.  Not  a  few  plead  business  cares,  but  intense 
selfishness-  is  the  root  of  evil.  Such  men  forget,  that  were 
it  not  for  organized  society  they  would  neither  have  wealth 
nor  pleasure. 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CUEKENOY.  291 

SPEECH  OF  HON.  IRA  S.  HASELTINE,  OF  MISSOURI,  IN  THE 
HOUSE  OF  KEPRESENTATIVES,  MAY  13,  1882,  ON  THE 
BILL  TO  ENABLE  NATIONAL  BANKING  ASSOCIATIONS  TO 
EXTEND  THEIR  CORPORATE  EXISTENCE. 

MR.  HASELTINE  said : 

MR.  SPEAKER  :  I  propose  the  following  amendment : 

"  That  all  the  interest-bearing  indebtedness  of  the  United 
States  now  due  or  optional  with  the  Government,  and  all 
other  interest-bearing  indebtedness  as  it  shall  hereafter  be- 
come due,  shall  be  paid  in  lawful  money  of  the  United 
States. 

"SEC.  2.  That  all  money  now  in  the  Treasury,  and  all 
revenues  of  the  United  States  Government  not  otherwise 
appropriated,  shall  be  applied  in  payment  of  the  interest- 
bearing  debt. 

"  SEC.  3.  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  be,  and  he 
is  hereby  authorized  and  required  to  issue  non-interest-bear- 
ing Treasury  notes  of  the  United  States  of  the  denominations 
of  one,  two,  five,  ten,  twenty,  fifty,  and  one  hundred  dollars, 
which  shall  be  made  lawful  money  and  a  legal  tender  at  its 
face  value  for  all  taxes,  revenues,  and  debts,  public  and  pri- 
vate, within  the  United  States,  which  may  be  necessary  in 
addition  to  the  aforesaid  money  and  revenues  to  pay  the  said 
interest-bearing  debt  now  due,  and  also  the  interest-bearing 
debt  now  optional  with  the  Government,  and  all  other  in- 
terest-bearing debts  as  they  shall  respectively  become  due. 

"  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  is  hereby  authorized 
and  required  to  issue  Treasury  notes  made  a  full  legal  tender 
and  lawful  money  in  denominations  convenient  for  currency, 
and  in  quantity  equal  to  any  contraction  which  may  be  caused 
by  the  withdrawal  of  national-bank  notes. 

"  SEC.  4.  That  all  acts  and  parts  of  acts  in  conflict  here- 
with be,  and  the  same  are  hereby,  repealed." 

Mr.  Speaker,  this  amendment  provides  for  paying  into  the 
circulation  all  money  and  revenues  not  otherwise  appropri- 


292  COIN  AND   PAPER  CURRENCY. 

ated,  and  issuing  legal-tender  currency  to  take  the  place  of 
interest-bearing  bonds  now  due,  or  optional  with  the  Govern- 
ment, and  also  to  take  the  place  of  national-bank  currency. 
It  provides  against  any  contraction  by  the  withdrawal  of  bank 
paper  and  saves  to  the  people  from  $12,000,000  to  $15,000,- 
000  per  annum.  The  adoption  of  this  amendment  would 
provide  for  the  payment  of  the  interest-bearing  debt  and 
supply  the  people  with  money  which  is  preferred  to  gold. 

Mr.  Speaker,  Hon.  Peter  Cooper,  the  great  American 
philanthropist  and  political  economist,  who  in  moral  and 
patriotic  grandeur  is  second  to  no  man  of  his  time,  in  his 
late  petition  to  Congress  protests  against  the  passage  of  the 
bill  under  consideration  as  reported  by  the  committee,  and 
presents  the  argument  for  a  just  and  enlightened  policy  so 
clearly  and  forcibly  that  I  deem  it  due  to  the  cause  and  in 
the  interest  of  good  government  and  humanity  to  give  his 
petition  entire,  etc.  (See  "  Congressional  Record") 

"Letter  to  the  New  York  Independent  by  the  Rev. 
Thomas  K.  Beecher,  of  Elmira,  in  reply  to  an  extract,  pre- 
viously published  in  that  journal : " 

( If  these  Greenbackers  had  as  much  sense  as  persistency 
we  should  think  very  well  of  them.' — Independent,  July  7, 
1882. 

"Mr.  Editor  and  readers  of  the  Independent,  have  you 
ever  read  for  yourselves  the  authoritative  deliverance  of  this 
6  National '  party  ?  Not  less  than  thirty  times,  during  the 
last  two  years,  acquaintances  of  mine  have  asked  me,  How 
can  you,  with  your  intelligence,  allow  yourself  to  be  called  a 
Greeiibackerf  To  which  question  I  make  answer  as  above : 
4  Have  you  read  our  platforms  ? '  I  find  invariably,  that 
they  have  not,  and  when  I  name  over  one  by  one  our  car- 
dinal doctrines,  I  have  to  find  a  man,  who  does  not  agree 
with  us. 

No  one  can  yet  foresee  which  one  of  our  half  dozen  doc- 
trines, is  first  to  arrest  the  public  ear  and  hold  it  long 
enough  to  get  an  answer.  But,  mark  my  words :  They  will 


COIN  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY.  293 

force  themselves  in  some  order  upon  general  attention  more 
and  more,  because  each  and  every  one  handles  a  vital  ques- 
tion. 

Earnest  men,  disgusted  with  the  mean  and  mercenary 
phase  of  'politics,'  when  once  they  come  into  a  convention 
or  council  of  Greenbackers,  are  refreshed  to  find  themselves 
in  company  with  intelligent  and  unambitious  men  of  princi- 
ple; men,  who  modestly  illustrate  that,  which  Goldwin 
Smith  prayed  for  :  '  Heaven  preserve  England  and  make  her 
public  men  think  what  will  become  of  themselves  at  the 
next  election.' 

"  Mr.  Editor,  we  have  i  persistence,'  because  we  have 
'  sense.'  At  a  time,  when  the  venerable  statesmen  of  the 
United  States  Senate  concentrate  their  sublime  powers  of 
debate  upon  the  little  Penn  Yan  post-office,  and  after  listen- 
ing to  c  masterly  orations ',  vote  upon  the  question,  whether 
Lapham  or  Miller  shall  name  the  postmaster,  it  would  seem 
as  if  it  were  time  for  somebody,  somewhere,  to  call  atten- 
tion to  questions  of  scope  and  dignity. 

Already  the  organized  Anti-Monopoly  League  in  this  and 
other  States,  has  borrowed  one  of  the  principal  demands  of 
the  Nationals  and  made  it  a  rally.  All  right. 

Already  every  business  man  in  the  land  prefers  a  green- 
back Treasury  note  to  any  other  form  of  paper  or  metal 
money.  And  we  Greenbackers  say :  All  right,  we  say  so, 
too. 

Who  of  all  the  readers  of  the  Independent  for  a  moment 
doubts,  that  the  multiplication  and  encouragement  of  small 
freehold  farms  and  homes  is  a  good  policy  for  any  State  ? 
Who  that  has  read  or  thought  fails  to  perceive,  that  vast 
plantations,  estates,  ranches,  grain  or  stock  farms,  held  by 
one  patron  or  capitalist  landlord,  have  been  and  are  ruinous 
to  Rome,  Ireland,  France,  and  even  to  New  York  ?  Ought 
not  limitation  laws  to  find  some  place  on  our  statute  books  ? 

Ought  not  a  corporation,  that  has  received  land  grants  as 
compensation  for  work  to  be  done,  to  either  do  the  work  or 
else  quit  selling  off  the  lands  and  pocketing  the  proceeds  ? 


294  COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

If  the  control  of  the  Mississippi,  as  a  free  water-way  for 
commerce,  was  of  such  importance,  as  to  justify  the  Lou- 
isiana purchase  and  furnish  our  strongest  argument  against 
secession  and  a  split  Union,  is  not  the  control  of  transcon- 
tinental railways  of  far  greater  importance — channels  that 
they  are  of  a  far  greater  commerce  and  travel  ? 

If  we  noisily  protest,  that  foreigners  must  not  control  the 
Isthmus  canals,  how  can  it  be  safe  to  allow  Gould  and  Yan- 
verbilt  to  control  transcontinental  railways  ? 

If,  for  purposes  of  revenue,  our  Government  inspects 
whiskey  and  certifies  the  proof — so  much  spirit  and  so  much 
water — why  not  inspect  stocks  and  forbid  dividends  on 
waterings,  and  call  into  the  Treasury  the  earnings,  now  ab- 
sorbed by  barefaced  frauds? 

Questions  like  these  interest  us  Greenbackers  far  more, 
than  the  faction  fights,  that  absorb  the  attention  of  the  two 
great  parties.  As  a  Christian  pastor  and  teacher,  I  invite 
young  citizens  to  discuss  these  questions,  for  they  yield  an 
education  every  way. 

But  as  between  the  two  old  parties  I  am  not  able  to  dis- 
cern any  difference  of  doctrine  or  policy ;  nor  do  I  find,  that 
party  leaders  set  any  great  value  upon  public  discussion,  or 
controlling  votes  or  carrying  elections. 

Hubbell  is  assessing  the  Republican  officeholders.  Con- 
ventions inquire  chiefly  for  candidates  with  a  barrel,  which 
they  are  ready  to  tap  with  a  big  anger.  Yotes  are  bought 
by  the  hundreds  in  this  little  city  of  Elmira,  under  disguise 
as  thin  as  a  bride's  veil.  The  appropriation  bills  in  Con- 
gress are  of  interest  chiefly,  as  furnishing  the  corruption 
fund  of  political  war.  Goodness,  openness  and  honesty  are 
sneered  at  as  Sunday  School  politics.  I  know  no  difference 
between  Republican  and  Democrat,  except  that  one  is  in 
and  fat,  the  other  out  and  hungry. 

And  when  the  tidings  came  over  the  land  of  a  new  Na- 
tional party,  with  principles  inscribed  on  its  banners,  one 
would  think,  that  good  citizens,  overweary  with  watching 
for  a  chance  to  be  active  in  public  affairs,  without  being 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  295 

compromised  by  the  company  of  liars,  conspirators  and 
thieves,  would  at  least  run  and  read  the  inscription. 

The  only  fault  I  find  with  my  Greenback  friends  is,  that 
they  put  too  many  good  things  in  their  platforms.  Too 
much  sense,  O  Independent !  not  too  little.  They  talk  about 
too  many  things. 

If  counsel  might  avail  in  these  unsatisfactory  days,  I 
would  advise  every  patriot  to  forsake  the  two  old  parties  and 
join  the  prohibition  army,  or  the  Anti-Monopoly  League,  or 
the  Greenback  party.  Join  anything,  anywhere,  that  enter- 
tains and  proclaims  principles,  of  which  you  can  make  your- 
self an  enthusiastic  advocate,  year  after  year,  no  matter  how 
the  election  goes,  nor  which  Senator  controls  the  Penn  Yan 
post-office. 

There  is  a  pure  and  bright  political  enthusiasm  which, 
next  after  the  inspirations  of  home  and  the  hope  of  heaven, 
is  the  noblest  stir  possible  to  man.  I  know  Greenbackers 
not  a  few,  who  have  felt  this  quickening.  Many  such  were 
at  Albany  at  their  recent  Convention.  With  them  or  with 
their  like  it  is  an  honor  and  a  refreshment  to  be  associated. 

THOMAS  K.  BEECHER." 

Elmira,  K  Y. 

XETTEK  OF  REV.  HOWARD  CROSBY. 

"  October  21,  1882. 
"EDITOR  JUSTICE. 

"  SIR  ;  If  we  are  true  in  our  desire  to  overthrow  mono- 
polies and  the  tyranny  of  wealth,  which  are  the  greatest  dan- 
gers our  Republican  institutions  have  to  fear,  1  cannot  see 
how  we  can  avoid  voting  against  the  candidates  (however 
excellent  in  personal  character),  who  have  been  nominated 
by  these  evil  powers.  I  am  a  Republican,  and  have  always 
voted  the  Republican  ticket ;  because  I  believed  the  Repub- 
lican party  represented  political  wisdom  and  virtue,  as 
against  demagogism  and  anarchy.  But,  if  the  helm  of  the 
Republican  party  is  to  be  seized  by  a  selfish  class  interest, 
its  wisdom  and  virtue  are  gone.  The  only  way  for  true 


296  COIN  AND   PAPEK   CUERENCY. 

Eepublicans  to  bring  back  tlie  party  to  its  purity,  is  to  vote 
down  the  nominees  of  the  conspirators.  But  this  (say  some) 
will  give'the  State  to  the  Democrats.  Yery  well !  Let  the 
Democrats  have  control.  I'll  trust  an  honest  Democratic 
party  rather,  than  a  dishonest  Republican  party.  We  know 
what  the  Democratic  party  is,  and  will  be  on  our  guard ; 
but  a  Republican  party,  that  professes  a  high  morality, 
while  promoting  rascality,  will  only  deceive. 

The  election  of  the  present  Republican  State  ticket  would 
be  the  endorsement  of  bribery,  fraud  and  the  tyranny  of 
ike  money  power.  No  consideration  whatever  can  justify 
this.  Fortunately  the  Democratic  party  have  given  us  can- 
didates of  the  very  highest  character,  whom  we  all  can  re- 
spect and  support  without  any  qualms.  By  their  election, 
not  the  Republican  party,  but  the  miserable,  dirty  wire- 
pullers, will  be  defeated,  and  a  blow  will  be  given  to  Mon- 
opoly, Greed,  Trickery  &  Co.,  under  which  they  will  stagger 
to  their  holes. 

The  whole  question,  which  the  voters  at  the  coming  elec- 
tion have  to  meet,  may  be  narrowed  down  to  this,  Shall  we 
have  money -lords  to  rule  us  f  or  specifically,  Shall  we  con- 
demn Governor  Cornell  for  vetoing  the  Elevated  Railroad 
Tax  Sill  f  The  aye  to  the  latter  means  aye  to  the  former. 

I  make  no  apology  for  meddling  with  politics.  I  am  an 
American,  a  citizen  and  native  of  New  York.  I  never 
sold  my  birthright.  When  great  moral  crises  arise,  I  will 
not  hesitate  to  speak  as  loudly  as  I  can  for  the  truth. 
With  mere  local  and  personal  politics  I  have  nothing  to  do. 
I  add  these  last  words  for  the  benefit  of  those,  who  suppose 
clergymen  are  either  women  or  children. 
Yours  very  truly, 

HOWAED  CROSBY." 


"The  Rev.  Elbert  S.  Porter,  D.D.,  who  has  long. been 
known  as  a  Stalwart  Republican,  discussed  the  political  situ- 
ation last  Sunday  night,  in  the  Bedford  Avenue  Reform 
Church,  Brooklyn,  E.  D.,  of  which  he  is  pastor.  Dr.  For- 


COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY.  297 

ter  prophesied  the  early  dissolution  of  both  the  political  par- 
ties, as  the  old  questions  were  no  longer  live  issues,  and 
nothing  but  the  spoils  kept  either  party  together.  A  new 
party,  formed  by  the  best  men  of  both  parties,  would  come 
into  the  control  of  the  Government  and  its  platform  would 
be  civil  service  reform  and  Anti-monopoly.  It  would  be  a 
good  thing,  he  continued,  for  the  Republican  party  to  be 
defeated  this  year  in  New  York,  as  it  doubtless  would  be  de- 
feated. The  Republican  party  never  stood  so  high  as  it  did 
now,  when  its  members  were  unwilling  to  submit  to  machine 
dictation  and  preferred  defeat  rather,  than  victory  by  fraud. 
I  have  voted  the  Eepublican  ticket  since  1860,  he  contin- 
ued, on  State  and  national  issues,  but  the  party  is  so  cor- 
rupt now  and  is  so  eager  to  clutch  at  money,  that  it  is  best  to 
defeat  it." 

"  The  Rev.  D.  M.  Hodge,  pastor  of  the  Harlem  Univer- 
salist  Church,  preached  in  the  evening  on  Politics,  taking 
his  text  from  Deuteronomy  xvi.,  18,  19,  20 — 4  Judges  and 
officers  shalt  thou  make  theean  all  thy  gates,  which  the  Lord 
thy  God  giveth  thee  throughout  thy  tribes,  and  thou  shalt 
judge  the  people  with  just  judgment.'  This,  he  said,  is  the 
political  council  of  the  Mosaic  law.  It  urges  the  duty  of 
the  people  to  make  their  own  judges  and  officers.  I  have 
not  any  very  high  opinion  of  what  are  commonly  known  as 
political  sermons.  I  should  not  know  how  to  preach  one. 
But  the  subject  of  politics  itself  is  one,,  which  commands  a 
great  deal  of  the  thought  and  time  of  the  people. 

The  present  condition  of  political  affairs  is  notoriously 
corrupt.  From  secret  conclaves  and  nominating  conventions 
comes  up  a  stench  of  evil,  offensive  in  the  nostrils  of  honest 
men,  so  that  men  say  :  '  The  whole  business  of  politics  is  so 
corrupt  and  disreputable,  its  methods  are  so  full  of  intrigue 
and  dishonesty,  that  it  seems  most  consistent  with  the  dig- 
nity of  the  Christian  pulpit  and  of  high-minded  men  to  let 
politics  severely  alone,  to  ignore  the  subject  altogether.'  But 
it  is  this  kind  of  dignity,  that  is  killing  us.  It  suits  the 


298  COIN  AND  PAPEE  CURRENCY. 

politicians  too  well.  All  that  a  low,  mean,  lying,  forging, 
intriguing  demagogue  wants  is  to  be  let  alone. 

The  greatest  danger,  that  threatens  our  institutions  grows 
out  of  the  apathy  of  our  best  and  most  intelligent  citizens. 
Upon  every  citizen  rest  the  duties,  the  obligations  of  citizen- 
ship. He  has  no  right  to  neglect  them,  or  put  them  aside 
and  to  leave  honest  and  disinterested  men  anxious  for  good 
Government  in  an  impotent  minority. 

You  are  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  of  America,  of  the 
planet  Earth,  and  the  best  thing  you  can  possibly  do,  is  to 
roll  up  the  sleeves  of  your  dignity,  vote  and  work  against 
the  demagogues,  and  so  help  to  improve  the  sanitary  condi- 
tion of  American  politics.  If  you  don't  do  this  with  all 
your  intelligence  and  integrity  you  don't  count.  Be  inde- 
pendent !  If  both  parties,  or  both  sets  of  candidates,  are  ob- 
jectionable, be  your  own  party,  till  you  find  somebody  of 
your  own  way  of  thinking ;  nominate  your  men  and  vote 
for  them." 


GENERAL  WEAVER'S  SPEECH  AT  COOPER  UNION,  NEW  YORK, 
NOVEMBER  5, 1882. 

"  Let  me  state  the  issues  separately.  They  are  as  follows : 
First — What  shall  be  the  permanent  system  of  finance  in 
the  nation,  which,  when  adopted,  shall  exist  as  long  as  the 
Kepublic  shall  last  ?  Shall  it  be  a  system,  where  the  power 
to  issue  the  money  and  control  its  volume  shall  be  delegated 
to  an  irresponsible  hanking  monopoly,  or  shall  it  be  a  sys- 
tem, where  the  people  govern  themselves  upon  finance,  as 
they  do  in  war,  peace  and  the  domestic  relations  ?  This  is 
a  very  great  question,  because  the  finances  of  a  country 
relate  to  the  moral  and  physical  welfare  of  every  soul, 
that  lives  under  the  flag,  and  every  hour  that  they  live.  It 
takes  hold,  not  only  of  the  physical  condition  of  man,  but 
also  upon  the  spiritual  and  intellectual  conditions,  etc. 

This  question  of  finance  takes  hold  of  the  trinity  in  man. 
The  Saviour  understood  that  very  well,  when  He  fed  His 


AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  299 

hungry  disciples  before  He  preached  to  them.  The  second 
great  question  is  cognate  to  the  first :  Shall  the  railroad 
corporations  be  brought  into  subjugation  to  law  and  be  com- 
pelled to  work  in  harmony  with  labor,  or  shall  they  become 
our  modern  barons,  lords  and  masters  ?  Third,  Shall  the 
public  debt  remain  ?  that  cancer  upon  the  body  politic, 
which,  when  it  only  amounted  to  about  $16,000,000  in  the 
days  of  Jefferson,  so  troubled  him,  that  he  wrote  concerning 
it :  i  When  I  think  of  the  public  debt,  I  cannot  sleep  upon 
my  pillow,  so  certain  am  I,  that,  if  allowed  to  remain,  it  will 
undermine  the  liberties  of  the  American  people.'  "  Now, 
here  is  a  trinity  of  great  questions,  and  out  of  the  trinity 
grow  a  group  of  other  questions,  such  as  the  land  question, 
and  various  other  questions,  that  to-day  agitate  the  heart 
and  the  brain  of  the  American  people.  These  are  the  great 
issues.  Why  do  you  require  a  new  party  to  settle  them  ? 
Give  me  your  close  attention  upon  this  point.  Prominent 
National  Bankers  are  Republicans.  Prominent  National 
Bankers  are  Democrats.  Prominent  railroad  kings  are  Re- 
publicans. Prominent  railroad  kings  are  Democrats.  Prom- 
inent Democrats  own  large  interests  in  Government  bonds, 
and  when  they  meet  in  their  national  conventions,  they  sim- 
ply train  both  the  old  organizations  in  the  interest  of  those 
monopolies,  etc.  Hence  the  monopolists  come  into  the  old 
parties  and  do  their  work,  throw  their  influence  and  great 
wealth  upon  the  side  of  the  monopoly  factions,  and  the  re- 
sult is,  they  control  your  conventions  and  control  your  nom- 
inations, etc. 

The  monopolies  are  all  confederated  together.  They 
fight  under  one  flag,  they  are  all  In  sympathy  with  each 
other,  and  the  great  mother  monopoly  of  them  all  is  the 
national  banking  monopoly. 

I  wish  to  illustrate  briefly  the  bank  monopoly  by  a  couple 
of  bills,  which  I  hold  in  my  hand.  This  one  dollar  bill  is 
a  greenback,  and  this  one  a  national  bank  bill.  Now,  these 
two  bills  represent  the  second  edition  of  William  H. 
Seward's"  <  Irrepressible  conflict,'  that  is  still  going  on  in  this 


300  COLNT  AKD   PAPER   CURRENCY. 

country ;  the  irrepressible  conflict  between  the  people  and 
the  people's  money  on  the  one  side,  and  corporations  and 
corporation  money  on  the  other. 

I  say  the  conflict  is  irrepressible,  for  one  or  the  other 
must  go. 

The  decree  has  gone  forth  on  the  one  hand,  that  the  green- 
backs shall  go,  and  we  declare,  that  the  national  banks  shall 
go.  The  Eepublican  party  has  declared  war  against  the 
greenback,  and  we  respond,"  '  Lay  on,  Macduff,' — "  and  you 
know  the  balance  of  the  quotation.  Now,  this  greenback 
bill  is  the  money  of  the  Constitution.  I  say  that,  because 
ike  Supreme  Court  of  ike  United  States  has  decided,  that  a 
greenback  is  constitutional  money  /  not  because  issued  in 
the  time  of  war,  but  they  have  decided  it  to  be  constitu- 
tional, upon  the  broad  pedestal  of  the  Constitution  itself. 
It  is,  then,  the  money  of  the  Constitution.  It  is  the  money 
of  the  Constitution  in  a  far  dearer  sense  than  that,  because 
we  know  it  saved  the  Constitution,  when  the  storm  and 
tempest  were  howling  about  her.  Things  don't  happen  in 
this  world  as  often  as  you  may  think  they  do.  There  is " 
6  A  divinity  which  shapes  our  ends,'  "  and  consequently  it  is 
very  appropriate,  that  you  should  have  the  picture  on  this 
constitutional  money,  that  I  find  here,  the  picture  of  the 
Father  of  his  Country,  who  presided  over  the  Constitutional 
Convention.  Yery  appropriate,  that  this  picture  should  be 
upon  that  bill.  Now  there  is  a  picture  upon  this  national 
bank  bill,  that  is  also  appropriate.  Two  women,  bare- 
headed and  bare-footed,  in  a  wheat-field,  shocking  wheat, 
emblematic  of  the  poverty,  engendered  by  this  system  of 
finance. 

Now,  when  the  Government  of  the  United  States  issued 
that  greenback  dollar  and  paid  it  out,  it  got  value  received 
for  it.  That  was  right,  was  it  not  ?  The  Government  ought 
not  to  give  away  its  money.  I  have  no  reference  to  pen- 
sions ;  that  is  not  a  gift.  Nor  have  I  any  reference  to  pro- 
per charities,  the  Government  sometimes  has  to  indulge  in ; 
but,  as  a  rule,  the  Government  ought  not  to  give  its  money 


COIN  AKD   PAPEE  CUEEENCY.  301 

away.  So,  when  the  Government  issued,  that  dollar,  it  got 
value  received.  We  have  $346,000,000  of  greenback  money 
in  circulation.  When  the  Government  paid  it  out,  it  paid 
$346,000,000  of  debt.  That  was  right,  etc.  ...  But 
when  the  Government  paid  out  this  national  bank  bill  to 
the  First  National  Bank  of  the  City  of  New  York,  how 
much  did  it  get  ?  They  did  not  get  a  cent.  It  was  a  clear 
donation.  The  Government  does  get  one  per  cent,  per  an- 
num tax ;  that  is  all.  But  it  did  not  get  it  in  advance. 
When  the  Government  issued  that  bill  it  was  a  clear  dona- 
tion to  the  Bank.  Now,  we  have  $357,000,000  of  that  kind 
of  money  in  circulation,  and  when  the  Government  issued  it, 
it  was  a  gift  of  $357,000,000 ;  and  to  what  class  of  men  ? 
Rich  or  poor?  Rich  men,  who  already  had  their  money 
invested  in  Government  bonds,  and  were  shirking  every 
burden,  that  you  people  have  to  bear.  Tell  me  why  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  should  do  that  thing? 
If  I  have  a  $100,000  bond,  or  if  the  bank,  which  issued  that 
bill  had  a  $100,000  bond  deposited  as  security  for  their  cir- 
culation, they  continue,  and  are,  to-day,  drawing  interest  on 
every  farthing  of  that  bond,  and  the  Government,  in  addi- 
tion to  that,  gave  them  back  $90,000  in  national  bank  cur- 
rency. You  give  the  national  banker  $90,000  simply, 
because  he  is  the  fortunate  owner  of  a  $100,000  bond,  that 
draws  a  high  rate  of  interest  and  pays  no  taxes. 

O,  that  some  spirit,  some  influence  may  be  breathed  upon 
the  people,  that  shall  arouse  them  to  a  sense  of  their  real 
situation  !  At  the  end  of  the  first  century  of  our  national 
life,  through  cruel  class  legislation,  every  avenue  and  agent 
of  commercial  life  and  activity  have  been  wrenched  from 
the  people,  and  turned  over  to  corporate  control  and  greed. 
We,  to-day,  practically  have  but  one  railroad,  one  banking 
organization,  one  telegraph  company,  and  one  express  com- 
pany. Now  we  declare  to  yon,  that  these  things  must  not 
be  so.  We  are  building  a  new  structure,  a  new  party ; 
what  shall  be  its  chief  corner  stone  ?  Early  in  the  year  I860, 
Abraham  Lincoln  made  a  speech  in  this  hall.  Let  his  voice 


302  COIN  AND   PAPER   CUEEENCY. 

be  heard  again  here  to-night.  President  Lincoln,  in  his 
first  annual  message,  December  3,  1861,  declared  as  fol- 
lows : "  '  There  is  one  point,  to  which  I  desire  to  call  atten- 
tion ;  it  is  the  attempt  to  place  capital  on  an  equal  footing 
with,  if  not  above,  labor,  in  the  structure  of  Government. 
Labor  is  prior  to  capital.  Capital  is  the  fruit  of  labor,  and 
could  not  exist,  if  labor  had  not  first  existed.  Labor,  there- 
fore, deserves  much  the  higher  consideration.'  "This  is 
the  chief  corner-stone  of  the  new  political  party.  But  how 
hollow  and  meaningless  is  Mr.  Lincoln's  declaration,  when 
read  in  the  light  of  the  class  legislation  of  the  past  fifteen 
years  !  Capital  has  not  only  been  placed  upon  "  <  an  equal 
footing  with  labor,'  "  but  by  law  it  has  been  made  the  mas- 
ter and  oppressor  of  labor.  It  is  the  mission  of  the  Na- 
tional party  to  destroy  this  abnormal  condition  of  things 
and  to  restore  labor  to  its  rightful  supremacy.  Not  that 
we  would  bring  on  a  conflict  between  capital  and  labor,  but 
that  we  would  prevent  it.  Labor  and  capital  were  joined 
together  by  our  all- wise  Creator.  Let  no  man  put  them 
asunder.  Their  relations  must  be  most  intimate,  friendly 
and  tender.  But  this  is  not  the  case  at  present.  A  man 
owning  a  $50,000,  4f  per  cent.  Government  bond  can  now, 
under  the  law,  without  doing  a  day's  work,  convert  his  fifty 
thousand  investment  into  an  investment  of  more  than  one 
hundred  thousand.  He  can  deposit  his  §50,000,  4|  per 
cent.,  and  draw  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  market  value  of  his 
bond  in  national  bank  currency,  while  his  neighbor  with 
$50,000  invested  in  productive  industry,  of  course,  can  do 
no  such  thing,  but  must  labor  and  lose,  and  in  addition  bear 
an  undue  share  of  the  burdens  of  the  State.  How  long,  I 
ask,  will  this  condition  of  things  be  allowed  to  exist  ?  Labor 
is  compelled  to  borrow  from  those,  who  do  not  work,  and 
whose  wealth  is  given  to  them  by  statutory  enactment.  The 
laborer  makes  his  money  by  hard  knocks,  and  the  bond- 
holder his  by  "  Be  it  enacted,  etc.  .  .  . 

Why,  my  fellow-citizens,  between  the  teachings  of  modern 
Republicanism  and  the  doctrine  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  con- 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  303 

cerning  the  rights  of  labor,  there  is  a  gulf  as  wide  as  that 
between  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus,  after  the  latter  had 
reached  heaven  and  the  former  had  been  cast  down  to  hell. 

It  was  the  maxim  of  our  Fathers,  that  industry,  economy 
and  wise  investment  of  surplus  earnings  in  productive  pur- 
suits constituted  the  only  legitimate  road  to  affluence.  Eut 
it  is  not  so  to-day.  Industry  toils  as  a  slave  to  corporate 
greed,  etc.  .  .  .  Confederated  monopolies  hold  the 
issues  of  life  and  death  in  their  hands.  They  dictate  to 
the  producer  what  he  shall  have  for  his  toil,  and  to  the  con- 
sumer what  he  shall  pay  for  the  bread  of  life.  The  most 
dazzling,  and  heretofore  unheard-of  fortunes,  are  being 
piled  up  by  means  of  this  extortion.  And  in  turn  this 
wrongful  accumulation  of  wealth  is  being  openly  used  to 
subsidize  the  press,  employ  the  best  trained  talent  of  the 
country,  and  to  corrupt  public  officials,  Legislatures,  Con- 
gress, and  judicial  tribunals.  Who  is  able  to  deny  these 
things  ?  Why,  if  you  wish  to  get  a  glimpse  of  the  influence 
of  corporations  over  your  Government,  contemplate  for  a 
moment  the  awful  fact,  that  the  Government,  in  utter  vio- 
lation of  its  trust,  has  given  away  to  railroad  corporations 
over  250,000,000  acres  of  the  public  domain,  that  was  in- 
tended by  a  kind  Providence  as  homes  for  our  children. 
An  area  nine  times  larger  than  the  great  State  of  Ohio  ! 
Just  think  of  that  for  a  moment,  and  your  hearts  will  grow 
sick  within  you,  etc.  .  .  . 

Now,  whence  must  our  help  come  in  this  extremity  ?  I 
answer,  from  the  people  and  through  the  instrumentality  of 
a  new  party.  Forgetting  ourselves  we  must  continue  to  go 
forth,  every  one  of  us,  as  evangels  of  truth,  educating  and 
arousing  the  latent  energies  and  hearts  of  the  people.  The 
remedy  must  come  through  the  ballot  lox,  and  it  must  come 
in  harmony  with  the  business  safety  of  the  community.  We 
seek  no  violent  or  doubtful  methods,  but  only  to  usher  in 
purer  methods  and  the  rightful  reign  of  the  people  over 
their  own  affairs. 

We  shall  not  be  disappointed,  for  our  party  is  strictly 


304  COIN  AND   PAPEK   CUKKENCY. 

national  in  all  of  its  aims  and  aspirations.  Sectional  ani- 
mosities are  wholly  unknown  within  our  party,  and  the  South 
will  gladly  strike  hand  with  us  to  usher  in  the  new  civili- 
zation. 

Fortunately  for  that  section  of  our  Union,  she  is  free, 
comparatively,  from  bank  monopoly  and  other  corporate 
power.  She  has  now  the  opportunity,  rarely  offered  to  any 
people,  to  become  the  leader  in  an  emancipation,  that  will 
endear  her  forever  to  mankind.  She  will  not  be  slow  to 
see  the  great  opportunity.  Her  statesmen,  less  sordid  than 
many  in  other  localities,  are  awake  to  the  situation.  We 
hail  her  people  as  co-laborers  in  the  greatest  reform  move- 
ment ever  inaugurated  since  the  dawn  of  human  history. 
Political  animosities  perish  and  are  forgotten  in  the  presence 
of  our  National,  our  most  fraternal  organization.  Let  us 
take  courage  from  the  recent,  large  gains  at  the  West,  and 
go  forward.  We  stand  at  the  ushering  in  of  a  new  era. 
Old  things,  old  parties,  shall  pass  away,  and  lo,  all  things 
shall  become  new  !  " 

HON.   WILLIAM    S.    HOLMAN,   OF   INDIANA,   ON   NATIONAL 
BANKS  AND  MONOPOLY,  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

May  16,  1882. 

"  Those  patriotic  institutions,  which  gentlemen  are  so 
anxious  to  invest  with  the  absolute  control  of  your  currency 
— the  life-blood  of  your  business  and  prosperity — were  per- 
fectly willing  to  overturn  your  admirable  monetary  system, 
disorder  your  industries,  and  throw  multitudes  of  men  out 
of  employment  to  defeat  an  ordinary  and  proper  act  of 
legislation,  affecting  them  about  one  per  cent  on  their  bonds, 
when  you  were  furnishing  them  $343,000,000  of  paper  at 
your  expense,  with  Government  indorsement  at  one  per 
cent,  per  annum. 

These  banks  are  making  a  steady  and  persistent  war  on 
your  greenback  money,  silver  certificates  and  the  silver  dol- 
lar, and  are  already  supported  by  high  officers  of  the  Gov- 
ernment. Does  any  gentlemen  on  this  floor  doubt  that,  if 


COIN  AND   PAPER   CURRENCY.  305 

the  system  is  permanently  established  by  the  passage  of  this 
bill  which,  at  no  remote  day,  at  the  demand  of  these  banks, 
your  greenback  money  and  silver  certificates  will  be  retired 
and  national  bank  notes  substituted  in  their  place  ?  Their 
system  is  well  defined  and  simple  gold  coin  the  only  stand- 
ard of  value,  and  no  taxation  by  the  Government,  even  the 
one  per  cent,  they  pay  you  for  their  circulation  to  be  re- 
moved. The  Comptroller  of  the  Currency,  the  representa- 
tive of  the  system,  in  his  last  report,  page  52,  says  ":— 

6  The  Comptroller  again  respectfully  repeats  his  recom- 
mendation for  the  repeal  of  the  law,  imposing  a  tax  upon 
bank  capital,  deposits  and  the  two  per  cent,  stamp  upon 
bank  checks.' 

"  And  on  page  58  of  the  report  urges,  that  Congress  shall 
limit  the  States  in  taxing  the  shares  of  stock,  and  yet  during 
the  last  year  there  was  paid  out  of  your  Treasury  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  Comptroller's  Office  alone  for  the  benefit  of  the 
banks  $214,118.50. 

Have  great  capital  interests  been  so  mindful  of  the  w6l- 
fare  of  the  people,  that  you  can  safely  trust  your  currency 
to  their  keeping  ?  If  so,  when  has  it  been  displayed  ?  I  re- 
member very  well,  when  a  distinguished  capitalist  of  Mas- 
sachusetts rose  on  this  floor  to  ask  for  the  passage  of  the 
bill  to  reorganize  the  Mint  (an  event  so  often  mentioned 
here).  I  remember  very  well  the  incident,  the  questions 
and  the  answers^  that  accompanied  the  passage  of  that  in- 
nocently-titled bill  through  the  House,  which  struck  from 
your  coinage  the  silver  dollar,  and  did  it,  too,  on  the  very 
eve  of  the  period,  when  the  coinage  of  the  silver  dollar  was 
to  be  vital  to  the  public  welfare. 

I  would  rather  indulge  the  belief,  that  the  distinguished 
gentleman  was  not  fully  conscious  of  the  measure  under  his 
control,  and  of  which  I  believe  he  was  not  the  author ;  but 
I  am  confident,  that  no  man  can  carefully  consider  the  events 
of  that  period  and  the  men,  who  were  then  at  this  Capitol, 
and  recall  events  transpiring  in  Europe,  and  the  state  of 
our  public  debt,  and  the  fact,  that  the  debts  of  the  nations 
20 


306  COIN  AND   PAPER  CUKKENCY. 

then  exceeded  in  volume  any  example  in  history,  without 
being  impressed  with  the  belief,  that  that  measure  was  not 
a  mere  incident  of  ordinary  legislation,  but  a  part  of  a  con- 
spiracy of  great  capitalists  against  the  labor  of  mankind. 

Our  silver  certificate  is  not  a  new  idea.  I  think  I  have 
read,  that  the  Dutch  suggested  the  idea.  The  frugal  burgo- 
masters of  Amsterdam  perceived  the  convenience  of  paper 
money  a  long  time  ago  and  organized  a  bank.  The  only 
law  of  that  bank  was  that,  when  a  paper  dollar  was  issued, 
a  silver  dollar  should  be  put  in  the  vaults  to  pay  it,  when  it 
came  back. 

I  have  entire  faith  in  this  system  of  silver  certificates,  and 
believe  they  will  play  an  important  and  most  valuable  part 
in  your  currency  system.  But  the  audacious  and  persistent 
war  made  upon  the  legal  tender  notes,  the  silver  dollar,  and 
the  silver  certificate  by  the  great  bankers  ought  to  inform 
our  people,  that  in  the  early  future  there  will  be  no  divided 
control  of  your  currency.  The  Government  will  issue  all 
forms  of  currency  for  the  common  benefit  of  the  people,  or 
the  national  banks  will  issue  it  all  on  the  credit  and  at  the 
expense  of  the  Government  for  the  benefit  of  the  banks. 

There  is  no  country,  where  corporations  exercise  as  tre- 
mendous a  power  as  in  our  own.  It  is  true,  that  incorpor- 
ated companies  exist  in  Great  Britain,  and  to  a  limited  extent 
in  the  nations  of  continental  Europe.  There  are  ninety 
banks  in  France,  with  thirty-seven  millions  of  people;  but 
in  all  those  nations  corporations  are  hedged  in  and  restricted 
by  wholesome  laws,  and  are  made  subordinate  to  the  public 
good,  except  where  they  have  been  organized  for  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  giving  strength  to  monarchical  power,  and 
then  they  have  been  made  subordinate  to  Government,  even 
if  organized  to  oppress  the  people,"  etc.  .  .  . 


THE  GOVERNMENT  STAMP  MAKES  MONEY. 

"  We  have  now  a  varied  currency  in  this  country,  which 
passes  at  the  same  valuation,  as  fixed  by  the  Government, 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  307 

though  its  so-called  intrinsic  value  is  unlike  in  every  case. 
To  please  those,  who  fix  the  gold  dollar  as  the  proper  basis, 
we  will  place  that  first,  and  give  the  value  in  gold  of  each  of 
the  other  dollars,  which  can  ~buy  just  as  much  labor,  food, 
or  anything  else  as  the  gold  dollar  purchases : 

The  gold  dollars, 100  cents. 

The  Trade  silver,  420  gr.  .  .  .  99|  " 
The  Daddy  dollar,  412i  gr.  .  .  .  97£  " 
The  Mexican,  417i  gr.  .  .  .  99  « 
Two  half-dollars,  371i  gr.  .  .  .  88£  « 

20  nickels,  5c 1TJ  " 

33J     «        3c 16f   " 

The  Greenback 0 

It  will  be  observed,  here  are  eight  distinct  kinds  of 
money,  which  circulate  indiscriminately  in  our  country,  and 
the  least  valuable,  intrinsically,  as  compared  with  gold, 
buys  just  as  much  as  any  of  the  others.  We  want  no 
better  argument,  than  the  table  above  to  explode  all  the 
fallacies  of  the  bullionists.  It  is  the  stamp  of  the  Govern- 
ment, that  maJces  money.  Without  it  nothing  is  money." 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS  ON  PAPER  CURRENCY. 

"  Men  call  the  Greenback  movement  a  delusion  and  fan- 
aticism. What  is  fanaticism?  It  is  enthusiasm  blinding 
judgment.  It  is  prejudice — obstinately  clinging  to  theories 
in  spite  of  facts,  which  disprove  them.  Let  us  ask,  then, 
who  to-day  are  the  fanatics,  judging  by  this  rule.  Look  at 
facts,  the  world  over.  Whenever,  during  the  last  century, 
either  of  our  great  nations  has  seen  its  existence  threatened 
by  civil  war,  or  foreign  assault,  instantly  that  nation  has  run 
to  the  shelter  of  paper  currency,  and  generally  been  thus 
enabled  to  survive  the  storm.  This  is  a  fact,  not  a  dream. 
Does  this  prove,  that  paper  currency  is  necessarily  ruin  and 
shipwreck  ?  Does  it  not  rather  look  as  if  a  paper  currency 
had  some  quality  in  it,  that  called  forth  to  the  last  dollar 
the  resources  of  the  people,  and  so  stimulated  their  energies, 


308  COIN   AND   PAPEE   CURRENCY. 

that  they  could  avail  themselves  of  all  their  possible  and 
hidden  power  ? 

When  a  man  strips  to  fight  for  his  life,  he  puts  himself 
in  the  condition  and  posture  to  do  his  best.  When  a  nation 
girds  herself  for  a  last  desperate  struggle  for  existence,  what 
does  history  tell  us  she  has  uniformly  done  ?  History  tells 
us,  that  a  nation  in  such  extremity  has  uniformly  thrown  off 
every  incumbrance,  stopped  every  drain  upon  her  resources, 
stimulated  every  possible  power  of  production,  economized 
all  her  means,  and  guarded  herself,  as  carefully  as  possible, 
from  all  foreign  interference  with  her  business  prosperity. 
How  has  she  secured  and  effected  all  this  ?  History  answers, 
4  By  resorting  to  a  paper  currency.' 

There  need  be  no  fear  of  communism.  Capital  and  labor 
have  no  dividing  line  here.  Like  the  colors  on  a  dove's 
neck,  they  join  and  unite  everywhere.  We  have  mingled 
freely  with  workingmen,  and  never  yet  met  one,  who  did 
not  believe  and  proclaim,  that  the  interests  of  capital  and 
labor  were  one." 

WARNING  TO  GREENBACK  MEN. 

"Xo  new  party  ever  made  such  rapid  strides  as  the 
National  Greenback  Labor  Party,  and  no  issues  were  ever 
presented,  that  so  vitally  affected  the  dearest  interests  of 
every  laborer  and  producer. 

Of  its  final  triumph  and  success  there  is  no  doubt. 

Knowing  this,  many  ambitious  aspirants,  for  position  and 
recognition,  will  attempt  to  force  their  virtues  and  claims 
upon  the  party,  and  if  they  cannot  succeed  with  the  major- 
ity, they  will  attempt  to  divide  and  disrupt  our  organization, 
with  a  hope  of  forcing  a  recognition  by  using  and  control- 
ing  a  minority. 

Spurn  all  such  disorganizing  demagogues,  and  stand 
shoulder  to  shoulder  with  the  main  army  for  certain  and 
early  victory.  Give  no  countenance  to  disorganizing  ego- 
tists and  place-hunters  ;  but  let  the  people  and  the  position 
seek  out  the  most  worthy  to  bear  our  standards." 


COIN  AND   PAPEE   CURRENCY.  309 

I  append  the  following  quotation  from  a  "  History  of 
Finance  in  England^"  by  S.  A.  Goddard,  Birmingham,  to 
show,  that  our  only  hope  of  security  from  the  desolating 
blight  of  periodical  panics  must  be  found  in  a  non-export- 
cible  paper  currency. 

These  facts  are  so  identical  in  their  general  character  with 
the  facts  in  this  country,  that  it  can  be  easily  seen  they  must 
spring  from  the  same  causes  and  from  a  similar  system  of 
finance. 

Hence  they  bear  directly  upon  the  questions  now  under 
discussion,  and  for  this  purpose  seem  to  me  very  instructive 
and  convincing. 

Mr.  Goddard  introduces  his  pamphlet  thus : 

"  The  writer,  having  seen  and  felt  the  disastrous  effects 
of  five  great  panics  in  England  and  their  accompanying 
panics  in  America,  which  upon  each  recurrence  have  put  a 
stop  to  trade,  ruined  clients  and  broken  up  arrangements 
and  connections,  formed  after  long,  diligent  and  expensive 
exertion,  is  desirous  of  impressing  on  those,  who  have  not 
studied  the  subject,  that  similar  panics  will  certainly  occur 
periodically,  so  long  as  the  present  monetary  system  is 
continued. 

If,  in  pursuing  this  search,  it  be  found,  that  a  similar 
depression  of  business  to  that  now  experienced,  and  to 
which  these  inquiries  relate,  has  been  witnessed  periodically  ^ 
for  a  series  of  years,  presenting  on  each  return  precisely  the 
same  characteristics ;  and  if,  during  the  whole  of  these  years, 
it  be  found,  that  a  system  has  prevailed,  upon  which  the 
business  transactions,  thus  depressed,  have  been  based,  and 
that  no  other  system,  condition  or  circumstance,  having  any 
material  general  bearing  on  these  transactions,  has  existed, 
or  been  in  force  throughout  the  same  period,  then  it  is 
fair  to  conclude,  that  to  this  system  may  the  depression  be 
attributed,  and  that  a  repetition  of  these  periods  of  depres- 
sion is  to  be  averted  only  through  a  reformation  of  the 
system. 

The  Bank  of  England  and  Provincial  Bank  Notes  con- 


310  COIN  AND   PAPEK   CUEEENCY. 

stituted  the  money  of  the  country  for  a  period  of  twenty- 
six  years,  performing  all  the  necessary  functions  of  money, 
effecting  the  exchanges  of  property,  enabling  capital  to 
employ  labor,  to  feed  the  hungry  and  clothe  the  naked  ;  and 
also  enabling  the  Government — whether  for  good  or  evil, 
need  not  enter  into  this  consideration — to  carry  on  a  great 
war,  and  bring  it  to  a  triumphant  conclusion.  These  notes, 
at  no  time  a  legal  tender,  passed  current,  and  were  taken  in 
payment  upon  all  occasions ;  a  fact  highly  creditable  to  the 
good  feeling  and  patriotism  of  the  people. 

When  the  war  terminated,  the  bank  commenced  prepar- 
ations for  a  return  to  specie  payments,  occasioning  a  general 
stringency  in  the  money  market,  causing  a  fall  of  prices, 
injury  to  credit,  and  the  prostration  of  trade.  The  return 
of  peace,  which  should  have  gladdened  all  hearts,  bringing 
with  it  prosperity  and  happiness,  brought  sadness  and  sor- 
row to  thousands.  Vast  numbers  of  persons  were  thrown 
out  of  employment;  the  laboring  classes  became  tumultu- 
ous, and  the  Government,  during  a  time  of  profound  peace, 
achieved  by  the  patriotism  and  valor  of  these  same  classes, 
suspended  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  in  order  to  drown  their 
cries  and  stifle  their  complaints. 

Lord  Liverpool  told  the  agriculturists,  who  memorialized 
him  on  the  subject  of  their  difficulties,  that  '  over-produc- 
tion was  the  cause  of  the  low  prices  of  agricultural  produce,' 
and  this  at  a  time,  when  the  Government  was  encouraging 
emigration,  because  there  were  too  many  mouths  to  feed  ; 
and  he  told  the  manufacturers  of  Manchester  and  Birming- 
ham, who  waited  upon  him  with  respect  to  their  distresses, 
that  they  '  made  too  many  goods  ; '  '  they  had  overstocked 
the  markets  of  the  world.'  The  consumption  of  cotton  at 
the  time  being  about  one-eighth  of  what  it  now  is,  and  the 
make  of  iron  and  of  Birmingham  goods  being  not  far  from 
the  same  proportion. 

Government,  however,  became  alarmed ;  and  extended 
the  time  for  returning  to  specie  payments  to  the  year  1819, 
which  caused  a  revival  of  confidence,  indicating,  as  it  was 


COIN  AND  PAPER  CURRENCY.  311 

supposed  to  do,  the  intention  of  the  Government  to  pursue 
a  lenient  policy  in  regard  to  the  bank ;  consequently  new 
life  was  given  to  the  people,  but  only  for  a  time,  for  the 
bank,  in  preparing  for  resumption  in  1819,  soon  obliterated 
all  signs  of  amendment,  and  the  depression  continued. 

In  this  dilemma  it  called  upon  the  Government  for  re- 
lief, and  the  call  was  too  significant  to  be  disregarded.  Lord 
Castlereagh  brought  into  Parliament  five  money  bills  in  one 
night,  one  of  them  permitting  the  circulation  of  one-pound 
notes  ten  years  longer,  viz.,  from  1823  to  1833,  and  all  of 
them  designed  to  increase  money  facilities,  passing  them 
through  as  rapidly  as  the  forms  of  Parliament  would  permit. 

The  effect  of  these  measures  was  great  and  immediate. 
Confidence  revived,  labor  everywhere  found  full  employ- 
ment, and  ere  long  there  was  not  a  cottage  in  the  land 
where  the  benign  influence  of  an  increased  medium  of  ex- 
change between  labor  aud  capital  was  not  felt." 

Looking  back  to  past  years  and  learning  from  experience 
the  cause  of  the  present  depression  in  business,  must  be 
plain  to  any  observant  mind.  It  is  primarily  the  damage 
to  confidence  in  men  and  things,  and  to  decreased  ability  to 
purchase  on  the  part  of  dealers  and  consumers,  occasioned 
by  the  panic,  caused  by  a  monetary  system,  still  in  full 
action,  that  deceives  and  cheats  the  community ;  lifting  it 
up  at  one  time  to  dash  it  down  at  another,  as  has  been  al- 
ready stated  ;  bribing  the  people  to  enter  into  business  and 
to  undertake  hazardous  enterprises,  and  after  alluring  them 
on,  removing  the  prop,  -which  should  sustain  them,  and 
leaving  them  to  their  fate.  PETER  COOPER. 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF- THE  FINANCIAL  POLICY  OF  THE  AMERI- 
CAN GOVERNMENT,  FOR  THE  LAST  SEVENTEEN  YEARS, 
FROM  1862  TO  1879. 

1.  In  1861  a  great  civil  war  broke  out  in  the  country,  in- 
volving the  integrity  of  the  Union. 

2.  In  1862  began  the  Legal  Tender  Act,  which  was 


312  COIN  AND   PAPEE   CUEEENCY. 

framed  'to  supply  the  means,  men  and  money  to  sustain  the 
Government. 

A  loan  of  two  hundred  millions  was  effected  with  the 
State  banks ;  but  when  they  found,  that  their  notes  were  to 
be  deposited  in  the  "Sub-Treasury,"  and  not  left  with  the 
banks,  subject  to  check,  and  that  they  might  be  called  to  re- 
deem their  notes  in  coin,  they  threw  up  most  of  the  loan, 
and  offered  their  irredeemable  notes  to  the  Government,  as 
money.  (See  Spaulding's  "History  of  the  Legal  Tender 
Money.") 

3.  Secretary  Chase  preferred  "  the  credit  of  the  Govern- 
ment, cut  up  into  small  pieces,  and  circulated  as  money." 

4.  Then  began  the  Legal  Tender  Acts,  which  put  into  the 
circulation,  in  the  course  of  eight  years,  about  $2,800,000,000 
in  different  forms  of  legal  tenders,  of  which  $430,000,000, 
was  in  the  form  of  greenbacks.     Every  one  of  these  Acts 
was  accompanied  with  a  Funding  Section,  which  provided 
for  the  withdrawal  of  the  legal  tenders  from  circulation, 
and  the  funding  of  them  into  "long  bonds,"  mostly  six  per 
cent,  interest,  payable  in  coin,  and  in  five  or  in  forty  years 
at  the  option  of  the  Government.     (See  Spaulding.) 

5.  These  Legal  Tenders  passed  into  the  circulation,  as 
money,  and  in  the  course  of  ten  years — from  1862  to  1873 — 
were  gradually  absorbed  in  the  "  long  bonds ; " — withdrawn 
from  the  circulation,  because  the  capitalists  preferred  the 
credit  of  the  Government,  thus  extended  to  them  at  six  per 
cent,  in  coin,  to  any  private  investment  of  their  money  in 
the  labor  and  enterprise  of -the  country  at  large. 

This  was  largely  due  to  foreign  capitalists,  who  were 
eager  to  invest  their  surplus  capital  in  the  Government,  at  a 
gold  valuation  of  the  legal  tender,  which  had  then  sunk  to 
forty  and  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar  in  gold — and  still,  further, 
were  payable  in  "  store  orders  "  on  foreign  goods. 

6.  The  capitalists  overdid  the  "  absorbing  process,"  hav- 
ing reduced  the  legal  tenders  to  a  legal  currency  of  about 
§350,000,000  and  brought  on  the  "panic  of  1873." 

7.  Meanwhile,  by  the  Bank  Acts  of  1863-64,  the  national 


COHS"  AND  PAPEE  CUEEENCY.  313 

banks  laid  tlieir  plans  of  turning  the  bonds  into  bank,  cur- 
rency without  surrendering  the  bonds.  The  Government 
made  the  bank  circulation  as  good  as  greenbacks,  and  redeem- 
able in  greenbacks. 

8.  But  the  greenbacks  must  be  brought  under  the  dom- 
ination of  gold — not  merely  to  an  equal  value,  and  made 
convertible  into  gold  over  the  business  counter,  but  redeem- 
able by  the  full  stress  of  the  law.    The  whole  responsibility 
of  redeeming  both  the  national  bank  currency   and  the 
greenbacks,  is  thus  thrown  on  the  Government,  which  can 
do  this  in  no  other  way,  if  the  notes  are  not  convertible  in  an 
open  market,  than  by  issuing  more  coin  bonds. 

9.  In  pursuance  of  this  policy  of  the  gold  capitalists,  the 
Government  was  induced  to  pass  the  "Act  to  strengthen  the 
Public  Credit"  (with  the   European  capitalists)  in  1870, 
making  the  whole  public  debt  payable  in  coin  /  then,  soon 
after,  surreptitiously  demonetizing  silver,  by  stopping  the 
coining  of  the  silver  dollar,  and  thus  making  gold  the  sole 
legal  tender  for  the  paper.     But  this  monstrous  legislation 
was  repealed,  when  the  object  became  too  apparent. 

10.  Finally,  the  Act  of  1875  made  it  compulsory  on  the 
Treasury  of  the  United  States  to  resume  specie  payments  on 
January  1, 1879.     This  was  the  culmination  of  the  gold  and 
coin  domination. 


TARIFF. 


FKOM  my  earliest  manhood  I  ever  thought,  that  a  good 
Government  should  encourage  and  protect  its  subjects 
as  parents  do  their  children.  Inventors  and  manufacturers, 
in  a  new  country,  have  to  train  themselves  and  then  teach 
and  educate  their  workmen  and  women,  before  they  can 
succeed  in  turning  raw  materials  into  articles,  which  can 
compare  with  those  of  older  countries.  Moreover,  work- 
shops and  factories  should  start  and  grow  in  order  to  de- 
velop home  markets,  so  that  the  tiller  of  the  soil  and 
mechanic  can  benefit  each  other.  The  mason,  carpenter, 
blacksmith,  etc.,  are  as  indispensable  to  the  farmer,  as  the 
farmer  is  to  them.  They  create  markets  for  each  other's 
products,  and  become  mutual  consumers. 

As  early  as  1846, 1  wrote  the  following  letter  to  Hon. 
Eobert  J.  Walker,  political  economist  and  free-trader,  and 
since  that  date  I  have  devoted  much  thought  and  time  to 
Finance  and  Tariff,  as  may  be  noticed  from  what  precedes 
and  follows : 

THE  TARIFF  BILL. 

NEW  YORK,  June  15,  1846. 
TO  THE  HON.   BOBERT  J.   WALKEK, 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

SIB:  On  the  6th  of  September  last,  I  received  from  the 
Hon.  C.  W.  Lawrence,  Collector  of  the  Port  of  New  York, 
a  letter,  enclosing  from  your  honorable  self  certain  inter- 
rogatories, and  requesting  any  information,  which  I  might 


316  TAEIFF. 

be  able  to  afford  the  Government  in  relation  to  my  particu- 
lar branch  of  business.  My  works  were  at  that  time  just 
on  the  point  of  starting,  and  of  course,  I  could  not  furnish 
any  statistics,  which  would  have  been  of  a  reliable  nature. 
I  thought  it  better,  therefore,  not  to  communicate  with  you, 
although  I  had  for  many  years  been  led  to  look  closely  into 
our  monetary  and  commercial  regulations,  and  to  arrive  at 
certain  definite  conclusions  in  regard  to  the  true  commer- 
cial policy  of  our  Government.  At  the  earnest  solicitation, 
however,  of  many  persons,  to  whom  my  views  were  known, 
and  who  believe,  that  the  present  moment  demands  a  pub- 
lic expression  of  opinion  on  the  part  of  those,  whose  busi- 
ness has  led  them  to  pay  especial  attention  to  these  matters, 
I  am  induced  to  request  your  attention  to  the  following  out- 
line of  the  true  principles,  which,  in  my  humble  opinion, 
should  guide  the  action  bf  the  Government  in  the  present 
position  of  our  commercial  relations. 

The  true  policy  of  every  Government  looks  to  national 
wealth  and  independence ;  in  other  words,  the  security  of 
the  rewards  of  honest  industry  to  individual  enterprise,  and 
the  production  within  its  own  limits,  as  far  as  practicable, 
of  whatever  is  necessary  for  the  support  and  happiness  of 
its  constituent  members.  The  earth  is  the  sole  source  of 
wealth — 1st,  by  the  mineral  treasures,  contained  within  its 
bosom;  2d,  by  the  vegetable  productions,  which  it  fur- 
nishes upon  its  surface.  To  obtain  either,  two  things  are 
necessary — physical  labor  and  human  ingenuity;  and  to 
apply  these  two  agents  most  perfectly  and  successfully, 
mankind  must  not  endeavor  to  labor  in  both  fields ;  but 
one  portion  must  devote  itself  to  agricultural  pursuits, 
while  the  other  must  be  employed  in  developing  and  giving 
a  useful  form  to  the  crude  masses,  in  which  Nature  has 
seen  fit  to  place  her  treasures.  The  value  of  a  day's  labor 
will  be  that  amount,  which  furnishes  a  comfortable  sub- 
sistence to  the  laborer  and  his  family,  and  enables  him  to 
lay  by  sufficient  to  meet  the  wants  of  sickness  and  old  age ; 
and  the  natural  standard  of  value  will  be  some  article, 


TAEIFF.  317 

whose  bulk  is  small  in  comparison  with  the  cost  of  produc- 
ing it,  and  which,  for  a  long  period  of  time,  is  least  subject 
to  wear  and  variation.  Just  in  proportion,  then,  as  a  nation 
so  distributes  its  labor,  that  there  is  a  mutual  dependence 
between  its  members,  and  the' results  of  its  industry  are  so 
varied,  as  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  whole  community,  and 
its  standard  of  value  is  uniform,  just  in  that  proportion 
does  it  approximate  to  the  perfection  of  political  organiza- 
tion ;  just  in  proportion,  on  the  other  hand,  as  it  confines 
itself  to  one  particular  channel  of  industry,  and  is  depend- 
ent on  foreign  nations  for  everything  else,  and  its  standard 
of  value  is  ever  wavering  and  uncertain,  in  that  same  pro- 
portion is  it  ill-governed  and  certain  to  entail  ruin  and 
misery  upon  its  members.  The  practical  bearing  of  these 
cardinal  principles,  obvious  enough  in  themselves,  will  per- 
haps be  shown  in  a  more  striking  and  forcible  light  by  a 
practical  illustration,  in  itself  an  argument,  and  leading  to 
certain  conclusions,  which  I  cannot  help  thinking,  will 
leave  no  doubt  as  to  the  course  of  policy,  which  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  should  pursue  in  the  present 
crisis,  as  its  action  at  this  time  must  determine  the  destinies 
of  the  country,  for  good  or  for  evil,  for  many  years  to  come. 
Let  us  suppose  two  separate  and  independent  Govern- 
ments to  exist  in  the  same  country,  separated  from  each 
other  only  by  a  narrow  stream  ;  possessing  the  same  natural 
advantages,  the  same  energy  of  character,  and  adopting  as 
the  measure  of  the  value  of  property,  one  uniform  currency. 
For  the  sake  of  convenience  let  us  distinguish  these  Govern- 
ments as  the  upper  and  lower.  After  many  years  of  uni- 
form progress,  during  which  time  their  only  circulating 
medium  was  composed  of  gold  and  silver,  or  for  the  sake 
of  transportation,  of  certificates  of  the  actual  possession  of 
gold  and  silver,  let  us  suppose,  that  the  upper  Government 
fancied  that  its  condition  could  be  bettered  by  pouring 
paper  money,  not  representing  the  actual  possession  of 
gold  and  silver,  into  the  volume  of  its  circulating  medium. 
The  effect  is  obvious,  and  is  set  forth  in  the  language  of 


318  TAEIFF. 

Washington,  when  he  declares,  "  That  in  exact  proportion 
as  you  pour  paper  money  into  the  volume  of  circulating 
medium,  in  that  proportion  will  every  thing  in  a  country 
rise  in  price."  A  bushel  of  corn,  although  it  will  feed  no 
more ;  a  day's  labor,  although  it  will  produce  no  more, 
will  be  increased  in  price.  Is  it  not  clear,  then,  that 
the  lower  Government,  adhering  to  its  old,  unadulterated 
standard  of  value,  will  continue  to  produce  the  bushel  of 
corn  at  the  old  cost,  carry  it  across  the  river  and  sell  it  for 
the  advanced  price  ?  And  so  long  as  the  old  or  upper  Gov- 
ernment continues  to  redeem  its  bills  with  silver  or  gold, 
just  so  long  will  the  lower  Government  continue  to  send 
over  the  river  every  article,  that  it  can  possibly  spare,  and 
will  find  it  to  its  interest  to  take  nothing  in  return  but  sil- 
ver and  gold,  as  everything  else  it  can  obtain  at  home  at  a 
cheaper  rate.  This  traffic  will  continue,  until  the  upper 
Government  finds,  that  the  operation  of  its  internal  trade 
becomes  so  embarrassed  by  the  absolute  want  of  silver 
and  gold,  that  some  remedy  must  be  devised.  It  must  stop 
this  continual  drain  of  specie,  and  therefore  it  attempts  to 
fence  out  its  neighbors  by  a  tariff  of  heavy  duties,  the  im- 
mediate operation  of  which  is,  if  paper  money  is  allowed  to 
increase,  to  add  the  amount  of  the  duty  to  the  previous 
price  of  every  imported  article  then  in  the  country ;  and 
this  advance  in  price  would  straightway  be  seized  upon,  by 
those  immediately  interested,  for  pouring  another  issue  of 
paper  money  into  the  volume  of  circulation.  The  imme- 
diate effect  of  this  increase  of  paper  money  would  be  an 
advance  in  price  ;  importations  would  again  commence,  the 
tariff  must  again  be  raised,  and  high  prices  and  high  tariffs 
would  go  hand  in  hand,  until  by  such  a  course  of  policy 
expensive,  idle  and  luxurious  habits  would  be  diffused 
among  the  people  to  such  an  extent,  that  in  accordance  with 
the  immutable  laws  of  trade,  where  there  is  consumption 
without  production,  they  would  become  involved  in  one 
general  ruin,  opening  wide  the  chances  for  a  few  to  amass 
huge  fortunes,  that  they  had  never  earned,  out  of  the  gen- 


TARIFF. 

eral  wreck  of  the  many.  An  attentive  consideration  of 
these  principles  will  lead  to  three  natural  conclusions : — 

First,  That  it  is  the  duty  of  every  Government  to  secure 
to  itself  the  most  uniform  and  intrinsically  valuable  stand- 
ard of  value  possible  ;  a  standard,  which  the  experience  of 
all  time  has  proved  to  be  gold  and  silver  ;  in  other  words, 
that  the  circulating  medium  of  a  country  should  be  com- 
posed of  gold  and  silver  coins,  or  paper  representative  of 
the  actual  existence  of  gold  and  silver,  dollar  for  dollar, 
or  representative  of  property,  the  actual  accumulation  of 
labor  done. 

Second,  That  a  tariff,  based  upon  a  currency,  which  is 
uncertain  and  fluctuating  in  its  nature,  will  in  itself  be  ut- 
terly inefficient  to  produce  the  effects  for  which  it  was  de- 
signed, and  will  be  but  the  first  act  in  the  great  drama  of 
expansion,  convulsion  and  general  bankruptcy. 

Third,  That  between  countries,  starting  in  the  race  of 
political  existence  at  the  same  time,  with  the  same  energy 
and  the  same  natural  advantages,  and  adopting  one  uniform 
standard  of  value,  no  tariff  of  protective  duties  would  be 
necessary  or  ought  to  be  adopted. 

How  then  does  the  past  policy  of  our  country  square  with 
the  principles,  stated  in  these  three  conclusions  ? — And  first 
as  to  its  standard  of  value.  From  the  earliest  history  of 
this  country,  as  an  independent  Government,  instead  of  con- 
fining our  currency  to  gold  and  silver  and  to  paper  repre- 
sentative of  labor  actually  performed,  as  has  been  mainly 
the  policy  for  many  years  of  those  countries,  from  which 
we  import  most,  we  have  allowed  paper  to  be  issued,  which 
has  its  value  founded — not  upon  the  accumulations  of  hon- 
est industry — but  upon  the  confiding  faith  of  an  unsuspect- 
ing public,  and  the  desire  of  many  men  to  do  business 
beyond  their  means. 

The  result  has  already  been  shown ;  and  while  at  first  all 
were  ready  to  admit,  that  a  protective  tariff  was  necessary 
to  develop  these  mineral  treasures,  that  Nature  has  show- 
ered upon  us  in  such  abundance,  and  to  mingle  with  the 


320  TAEIFF. 

music  of  her  waterfalls  the  busy  hum  of  machinery,  and 
to  afford  a  ready,  convenient  and  certain  market  for  our 
agricultural  produce ;  men,  finding  that  the  tariff  did  not 
produce,  the  effects  anticipated,  have  been  induced  to  at- 
tribute its  failure  to  its  own  inherent  weakness,  rather  than 
the  true  cause,  namely,  an  ever  expanding  and  contracting 
currency.  We  have  already  seen,  that  a  tariff,  founded  on 
such  a  basis,  must  from  the  nature  of  things  be  inefficient, 
deceptive  and  futile. 

But  does  "it  hence  follow,  that  a  protective  tariff  is  not 
necessary  for  this  country  to  induce  the  manufacture  of 
those  articles,  the  raw  material  for  which  is  found  here  in 
as  great  perfection,  and  can  be  wrought  into  useful  and 
necessary  articles,  with  as  little  expense  of  human  labor  as 
in  any  other  country  in  the  world  ?  In  our  original  paral- 
lel we  started  the  two  Governments  in  the  race  of  political 
existence  at  the  same  time,  and  hence  we  reached  the  third 
conclusion  above  stated ;  but  in  order  to  understand  the 
true  position  of  this  country  in  regard  to  other  producing 
countries,  we  must  vary  the  parallel  in  this  wise.  We  must 
suppose  the  upper  Government  had  been  in  existence  for  a 
thousand  years,  continually  advancing  in  science,  knowl- 
edge of  the  arts,  the  development  of  its  internal  resources, 
the  experience  of  its  producing  classes  and  in  population, 
till  at  length  a  large  number  of  its  inhabitants  concluded 
to  emigrate  into  a  new  land,  possessing  advantages  and  re- 
sources superior  even  to  those  of  the  mother  country,  but 
which  required  industry,  ingenuity,  capital  and  time  to  de- 
velop. The  raw  material,  from  the  fertility  and  adaptation 
of  the  soil,  they  could  produce,  with  much  greater  facility 
than  the  mother  country  ;  but  from  the  unfortunate  adop- 
tion of  a  paper  currency,  the  want  of  capital  to  start  a 
manufacturing  system  successfully,  and  the  great  demand 
for  labor  consequent  upon  a  new  settlement,  the  cost  of 
producing  the  finished  article  would  be  considerably  greater 
than  in  the  mother  country,  even  with  the  difference  of 
freight  in  their  favor. 


TAEIFF.  321 

The  result  is,  that  to  the  extent,  which  the  mother  coun- 
try absolutely  requires  the  natural  produce  of  its  offspring, 
the  latter  will  be  supplied  with  the  manufactured  article. 
Any  surplus  of  agricultural  produce,  which  they  may  have 
beyond  that  limit,  will  first  tend  to  lower  the  price  of  the 
whole  raw  material  of  the  country,  and  must  finally  be  left 
to  decay. 

What,  then,  are  the  remedies,  that  should  be  applied  ? 
In  the  first  place,  the  standard  of  currency  must  be  at  least 
as  valuable  and  uniform  as  in  the  mother  country.  It  will 
then,  and  not  till  then,  become  apparent  what  amount  of 
tariff  must  be  imposed  to  offer  a  sufficient  bounty  to  capi- 
talists to  invest  their  property  in  manufacturing  establish- 
ments. It  is  plain,  that  the  amount  of  bounty  required 
would  be  just  enough  to  counterbalance  the  advantages, 
which  the  mother  country  possesses,  in  having  had  her 
manufacturing  system  in  operation  for  a  series  of  years. 
With  our  currency,  regulated  in  this  way,  and  with  the  nat- 
ural and  political  advantages,  which  we  possess,  freed  as 
we  are  from  standing  armies  and  the  load  of  taxation,  which 
weighs  the  nations  of  Europe  down  to  the  earth,  our  coun- 
trymen would  be  astonished  at  the  small  amount  of  uniform 
bounty,  which  would  be  required  to  open  a  thousand  chan- 
nels of  domestic  industry,  and  afford  a  home  market  for 
almost  every  article  of  domestic  growth.  And  the  compe- 
tition, which  would  be  the  necessary  result  of  an  extended 
manufacturing  system,  would  soon  bring  the  article  to  the 
lowest  price,  at  which  it  could  be  afforded. 

In  this  country  millions  are  already  invested,  and  thou- 
sands of  operatives  are  usefully  and  successfully  employed 
in  the  various  manufacturing  pursuits.  By  well  directed 
efforts  of  capital  and  skill,  the  country  has  been  furnished 
with  almost  every  species  of  manufactured  articles  of  bet- 
ter quality  and  mainly  at  cheaper  rates,  than  has  ever  be- 
fore been  the  case  on  the  average  of  any  ten  previous  years ; 
and  our  farmers  have  had  a  sure  and  steady  market  at  home 
for  every  variety  of  agricultural  produce  to  the  extent  of 
21 


322  TARIFF. 

the  wants  of  all  the  persons,  employed  in  manufacturing 
pursuits.  Will  it  stimulate  the  industry  of  our  country,  or 
secure  the  rewards  of  labor  to  the  hands,  that  earn  them, 
by  adopting  such  a  course  of  legislation,  as  will  sacrifice 
these  millions,  and  turn  these  thousands  out  of  employ- 
ment ?  Certainly  not ;  for  in  exact  proportion  as  men  are 
made  sure  in  the  rewards  of  honest  and  useful  labor,  they 
become  prosperous,  virtuous  and  happy ;  and  in  the  same 
proportion  as  men  are  deceived  and  deprived  of  their  just 
rewards,  they  become  discouraged,  vicious  and  desperate. 
A  course  of  policy,  that  will  give  the  greatest  stability  to 
the  operations  of  trade,  and  excite  the  fewest  apprehen- 
sions of  coming  distress  and  pressure,  will  best  promote  the 
substantial  interests  of  the  country.  I  would,  therefore, 
venture  to  suggest  the  only  means,  that  seem  practicable  to 
effect  this  object. 

First — I  would  recommend  the  immediate  adoption  of 
the  Sub-Treasury,  and  that  its  action  upon  the  currency 
should  be  made  gradual,  by  the  collection  of  twenty  per 
cent,  of  the  revenue  in  specie  every  year,  until  the  whole 
amount  should  be  collected  in  gold  and  silver. 

Secondly — I  would  recommend,  that  the  changes  in  the 
tariff  should  also  be  made,  to  take  effect  gradually,  and  that 
the  duties  should  be  of  a  specific  nature,  and  not  on  the 
ad  valorem  basis  ;  because  the  latter  allows  persons  devoid 
of  honesty  to  resort  to  fraud,  and  break  down  every  mer- 
chant, who  may  pursue  an  honorable  business ;  because  it 
subjects  the  revenue  to  constant  change  in  amount,  just  as 
the  prices  of  imported  articles  rise  and  fall,  the  revenue  be- 
ing least,  when  the  Government  needs  it  most.  And,  finally, 
because,  when  the  prices  are  high  and  the  manufacturer 
needs  no  protection,  it  affords  him  protection  of  the  amplest 
kind ;  but  when  prices  are  low,  and  the  manufacturer  must, 
if  ever,  shield  himself  under  the  tariff,  but  very  slight  pro- 
tection is  afforded.  This  will  fee  made  apparent  by  refer- 
ring to  a  list  of  prices  of  any  one  leading  article  for  some 
years  back.  The  price  of  iron,  for  example,  as  shown  by 


TARIFF.  323 


the  books  of  Messrs.  Jevon,  Banks  &  Co.,  of  Liverpool,  lias 
fluctuated  from  £15  in  1825,  to  £4  10  in  1843,  per  ton,  and 
within  the  past  eighteen  months,  from  £7  to  £11.  What 
protection  would  an  ad  valorem  duty  have  afforded  in  1843, 
when  the  English  were  seeking  a  market  at  any  price  ?  It 
must  have  produced  the  immediate  stoppage  of  every  roll- 
ing mill  in  this  country.  The  same  facts  would  be  shown 
by  referring  to  any  other  leading  article.  I  would  suggest, 
therefore,  as  the  proper  course,  that  the  Government  should 
ascertain  as  soon  as  may  be  practicable,  and  as  accurately 
as  possible,  what  articles  are  paying  a  duty  injurious  to  the 
best  interests  of  our  country,  and  that  the  excess  of  duties, 
now  imposed  in  a  specific  form  on  those  articles  be  gradu- 
ally reduced,  say  twenty  per  cent,  per  annum,  until  the  whole 
amount,  collected  by  the  operation  of  the  tariff,  be  barely 
sufficient  to  meet  the  wants  of  an  economical  administra- 
tion of  the  Government.  We  should  thus  gradually  arrive 
at  a  tariff,  based  upon  a  revenue  standard,  and  at  the  same 
time  afford  protection  to  the  manufacturer  in  such  a  way, 
that  he  could  be  ready  for  each  change  in  the  tariff,  until 
it  reaches  the  revenue  basis. 

Thirdly — The  Sub-Treasury  should  be  made  to  take 
effect  at  least  one  year,  before  any  change  of  the  tariff 
should  go  into  operation,  in  order  to  give  it  time  to  bring 
the  currency  under  its  influence,  and  prevent  the  banks  and 
enemies  of  the  present  administration  from  producing  a 
panic,  by  operating  on  the  fears  and  affecting  the  interests 
of  the  community  to  such  an  extent,  that  it  might  result  in 
a  change  of  administration,  and  bring  again  into  power 
those,  whose  favorite  idols  are  a  national  bank,  a  high  tariff, 
and  inflated  currency,  with  all  their  terrific  power  for  mis- 
chief, "  fertilizing  the  rich  man's  field  with  the  sweat  of  the 
poor  man's  brow." 

I  should  hardly  have  ventured  to  obtrude  my  views  on 
these  subjects  upon  your  attention,  although  they  are  the 
results  of  the  experience  of  more  than  forty  years,  inces- 
santly devoted  to  mechanical  and  mercantile  pursuits,  were 


324  TAKIFF. 

I  not  deeply  impressed  with  the  conviction,  that  the  mas- 
terly policy,  sketched  out  by  the  Government  of  Great 
Britain,  will  render  the  action  of  the  present  Congress, 
upon  the  great  questions  of  the  currency  and  the  tariff, 
more  deeply  fraught  with  good  or  evil  to  the  best  interests 
of  the  country,  than  at  any  period  within  my  recollection. 

In  all  the  changes,  which  the  wisdom  of  our  Congress 
shall  see  lit  to  adopt,  the  proposed  changes  in  the  commercial 
policy  of  Great  Britain  should  be  kept  strictly  in  view.  That 
Government  finds,  that  by  reason  of  past  restraints  on  its 
own  commerce,  it  has  eaten  its  bread  for  thirty  years  at  §9 
per  barrel,  and  that  by  a  radical  change  of  its  own  policy 
the  price  may  be  reduced  to  $6  per  barrel,  thereby  widen- 
ing its  own  market,  already  nearly  co-extensive  with  the 
world,  and  becoming  in  our  own  market  a  more  formidable 
competitor,  in  the  same  proportion  as  its  bread  is  made 
cheaper.  Will  it  answer  then  for  this  Government,  at  this 
moment,  to  aid  the  already  overgrown  capital  of  Great 
Britain,  to  break  down  the  manufactures  of  our  country, 
that  are* just  struggling  into  existence,  and  force  these  op- 
eratives, at  present  engaged  in  manufactures,  into  competi- 
tion with  the  agricultural  producers,  instead  of  being  the 
consumers  of  the  results  of  the  labor  of  the  latter  ? 

No  one  more  ardently  desires  a  free  and  unrestricted  in- 
terchange of  commodities  between  the  two  countries  than 
myself,  and  no  one  more  firmly  and  hopefully  believes, 
that  the  day  will  come,  when  the  ports  of  both  nations  will 
be  thrown  wide  open  to  every  flag,  that  waves  upon  the 
ocean — a  consummation,  which  the  recent  auspicious  action 
of  the  Senate  on  the  Oregon  question  is  well  calculated  to 
forward ;  but  in  endeavoring  to  effect  this  desirable  object, 
we  should  not  blindly  and  hastily  uproot  the  very  system, 
which  we  have  for  years  been  endeavoring  to  encourage  ; 
but  the  change  should  be  made  gradual,  so  as  to  allow  time 
for  the  full  development  of  our  internal  resources,  the  ap- 
plication of  our  water  powers  to  the  purposes,  for  which 
Nature  prepared  them,  the  acquirement  of  the  requisite 


TARIFF.  325 

skill  and  the  investment  of  the  necessary  capital  to  carry 
on  our  manufactures  successfully.  Our  fellow  citizens 
would  then  feel  certain  of  a  permanent  system,  and  a  sure 
guarantee,  that  the  just  rewards  of  ingenuity  and  skill 
would  be  secured  to  individual  enterprise ;  and  the  good 
and  great  of  every  land,  who  have  their  eyes  fixed  upon  this 
country,  as  the  precursor  and  harbinger  of  a  better  human- 
ity throughout  the  world,  would  be  cheered  and  encouraged 
with  the  conviction,  that  after  seventy  years  of  independ- 
ence, both  the  people  of  the  United  States  and  their  Eepre- 
jsentatives  are  still  looking  to  the  only  objects,  worthy  of  a 
liberal  Government — the  best  interests  of  all  classes  in  our 
common  country,  and  the  onward  progress  of  free  prin- 
ciples. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be, 
Yery  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

PETER  COOPEB. 


LETTER  TO  HON.  H.  J.  REDFIELD. 

NEW  YORK,  January  17, 
SIR:  Your  letter,  dated  December  24,  1867,  addressed 
to  me,  in  the  Batavia  Spirit  of  the  Times,  and  republished 
in  the  EVENING  POST  of  the  6th  instant,  has,  within  the  past 
few  days,  been  called  to  my  attention,  and  I  now  take  the 
earliest  opportunity  of  replying  to  it. 

I  am  pleased  to  receive  the  views  of  an  old  and  respected 
citizen  on  the  subjects  on  which  it  treats ;  and,  although  we 
have  arrived  at  different  conclusions  on  these  subjects,  yet 
the  discussion  of  them  in  a  frank  and  kindly  manner  can- 
not be  otherwise  than  useful. 

For  myself,  I  am  indeed  conscious,  as  you  remind  me^ 
that  I  am  an  old  man,  liable  to  error  and  frailty,  as  we  all 
are,  but  yet  I  trust,  not  so  warped  either  by  my  prejudices 
or  my  interest  as  to  be  incapable  of  the  honest  investiga- 
tion of  arguments,  presented  for  my  consideration,  even 


326  TAKIFF. 

though  in  opposition  to  long  cherished  convictions.  And 
I  will  as  frankly  say,  my  dear  Sir,  that  the  record  of  your 
long  and  useful  life  gives  assurance,  that  no  unworthy  in- 
fluence will  be  permitted  by  you  to  sway  your  judgment  or 
influence  your  conduct  in  this  matter. 

I  have  at  the  outset  to  complain  of  the  manner  of  your 
reference  to  the  tariff  legislation  of  the  country,  as  calcu- 
lated to  convey  very  incorrect  impressions  upon  that  sub- 
ject, and  mislead  those,  who  are  uninformed  respecting  it. 

The  inference,  naturally  to  be  drawn  from  your  letter, 
would  be,  that  the  effort  to  stimulate  domestic  manufac- 
tures, which  you  illustrate  by  the  figure  of  the  people  car- 
rying an  infant  in  their  arms,  was  something  strange  and 
exceptional  in  the  policy  of  civilized  nations,  and  contrary 
to  the  genius  of  American  institutions.  You  forgot,  that 
the  system  of  protection  to  home  labor,  which  you  so 
earnestly  condemn,  is  to-day  acted  on  by  every  civilized 
nation  on  the  Earth,  and  has  the  sanction  of  the  states- 
men and  rulers,  not  only  in  Europe,  hut  our  own  country, 
whose  wisdom  mankind  has  acknowledged  and  universally 
respects.  The  principles,  Sir,  which  you  denounce  with 
such  severity,  have  been  held  from  the  beginning  by  the 
founders  and  great  political  teachers  of  the  nation,  men 
whom  we  are  accustomed  to  honor,  and  whose  opinions 
have  just  weight  with  us  on  other  subjects.  Among  these 
I  might  name  Franklin,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Jackson  and 
many  others,  whose  recorded  words  defend  and  maintain 
the  doctrine  you  decry.  Of  these  I  shall  only  quote  the 
words  of  Jackson,  whose  advocacy  of  the  principles  of  pro- 
tection you  seem  to  doubt. 

ANDREW   JACKSON   ON   THE   TAKIFF. 

In  writing  to  Dr.  Coleman,  in  1824,  Andrew  Jackson 
thus  fully  and  unequivocally  expressed  himself  on  the  tariff 
question : 

"  You  ask  my  opinion  on  the  tariff.    I  answer,  that  I  am 


TARIFF.  327 

in  favor  of  a  judicious  examination  and  revision  of  it ; 
and  so  far  as  the  tariff  bill  before  us  embraces  the  design 
of  fostering  and  protecting,  preserving  within  ourselves  the 
means  of  national  defence  and  independence,  particularly 
in  a  state  of  war,  I  would  advocate  and  support  it.  The 
experience  of  the  late  war  ought  to  teach  us  a  lesson,  and 
one  never  to  be  forgotten.  If  our  liberty  and  Republican 
form  of  government,  procured  for  us  by  our  Revolutionary 
Fathers,  are  worth  the  blood  and  treasure,  at  which  they 
were  obtained,  it  is.  surely  our  duty  to  protect  and  defend 
them.  This  tariff — I  mean  a  judicious  one — possesses  more 
fanciful  than  real  danger.  I  will  ask :  What  is  the  real 
situation  of  the  agriculturist?  Where  has  the  American 
farmer  a  market  for  his  surplus  products?  Except  for 
cotton,  he  has  neither  a  foreign  nor  a  home  market.  Does 
not  this  clearly  prove,  when  there  is  no  market  either  at 
home  or  abroad,  that  there  is  too  much  labor  employed  in 
agriculture,  and  that  the  channels  for  labor  should  be  mul- 
tiplied? Common  sense  points  out  the  remedy.  Draw 
from  agriculture  the  superabundant  labor ;  employ  it  in 
mechanism  and  manufactures;  thereby  creating  a  home 
market  for  your  bread  stuffs  and  distributing  labor  to  the 
most  profitable  account  and  benefit  to  the  country.  Take 
from  agriculture  in  the  United  States  six  hundred  thousand 
men,  women  and  children,  and  you  will  at  once  give  a 
home  market  for  more  breadstuffs,  than  all  Europe  now  fur- 
nishes us.  In  short,  Sir,  we  have  been  too  long  subject  to 
the  policy  of  British  merchants.  It  is  time,  that  we  should 
become  a  little  more  Americanized,  and  instead  of  feeding 
the  paupers  and  laborers  of  England,  feed  our  own,  or  else, 
in  a  short  time,  by  continuing  our  present  policy,  we  should 
be  rendered  paupers  ourselves." 

And  in  his  second  annual  message  to  Congress,  Decem- 
ber 7,  1830,  he  closes  an  argument  in  favor  of  the  Consti- 
tutional right  to  adjust  the  custom  duties,  as  to  encourage 
domestic  industry  with  these  words  : 

"  In  this  conclusion  I  ana  confirmed  as  well  by  the  opiii- 


328  TAEIFF. 

ions  of  Presidents  Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison,  and 
Monroe,  who  have  each  repeatedly  recommended  the  exer- 
cise of  this  right  under  the  Constitution,  as  by  the  uniform 
practice  of  Congress,  the  continual  acquiescence  of  the 
States,  and  the  general  understanding  of  the  people." 

But,  not  only  has  this  principle  of  protection  to  domestic 
industry  been  advocated  by  the  most  illustrious  of  our 
American  statesmen,  but  it  has  been  received  and  acted  on 
by  every  civilized  nation  on  the  Earth.  It  has  been  the 
steady  policy  of  France  since  the  days  of  Colbert,  enforced 
more  strongly  and  consistently  by  the  first  Napoleon,  and 
(notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  said  about  the  "  French 
treaty  ")  steadily  maintained  by  the  present  Emperor.  In 
England  for  five  centuries  the  policy  has  prevailed  since 
the  days  of  Edward  the  Third,  and  if  twenty-five  years  ago 
she  thought  if  practicable  to  relax  the  restrictions  she  had 
placed  upon  the  importation  of  foreign  manufactures,  she 
is  now  aware  of  the  mistake,  and  awaking  to  a  sense  of  the 
fatal  danger  she  incurred,  and  already  her  discontented 
operatives  are  demanding  the  restoration  of  protection 
against  the  cheaper  labor  of  their  continental  rivals,  and 
her  farmers  are  claiming  a  prohibitory  duty  on  foreign 
cattle,  imported  into  the  country.  In  Kussia,  that  land  so 
like  our  own  in  the  magnitude  of  its  undeveloped  resources, 
the  wisdom  and  necessity  of  fostering  domestic  production 
is  understood  and  acted  on.  And  in  the  history  of  the 
German  Zolverein  for  the  past  five  and  thirty  years  is  found 
at  once  the  evidence  and  illustration  of  the  wisdom  of  pro- 
tection to  home  industry  among  a  people,  where  all  prop- 
erty is  measured  by  a  uniform  standard. 

THE    TARIFF    LEGISLATION    OF   THE    UNITED    STATES. 

You  give,  Sir,  in  a  condensed  form,  what  you  design  as 
a  history  of  the  tariff  legislation  of  the  United  States  for 
the  last  fifty  years.  I  do  not  regard  it  either  as  accurate 
or  specific,  as  such  a  statement  would  need  be  for  any  safe 


TAEIFF.  329 

purpose  of  argument,  and  as  I  think,  that  exact  information 
on  this  subject  is  of  great  importance,  I  take  the  liberty  of 
quoting  a  passage  from  a  letter  of  Mr.  Henry  C.  Carey, 
which  is  valuable  for  the  historical  evidence  it  affords,  that 
Governmental  interference,  on  behalf  of  manufactures,  has 
always  produced  general  national  prosperity,  and  that  the 
withdrawal  of  that  interference  has  as  invariably  resulted 
in  industrial  distress  and  commercial  disaster  : 

"  Fifty  years  since,  the  second  war  with  Great  Britain 
came  to  a  close,  leaving  our  people  well  provided  with  mills 
and  furnaces,  all  of  which  were  actively  engaged  in  making 
demand  for  labor  and  for  raw  materials  of  every  kind. 
Money  was  then  abundant,  and  the  public  debt  was  trivial 
in  amount. 

Two  years  later  we  entered  upon  the  British  free  trade 
system,  and  at  once  all  was  changed.  Mills  and  furnaces 
were  closed ;  labor  ceased  to  be  in  demand  ;  and  our  poor- 
houses  were  everywhere  filled.  Money  becoming  scarce 
and  interest  high,  land  declined  to  a  third  of  its  previous 
price.  Banks  stopped  payment.  The  sheriff  everywhere 
found  full  demand  for  all  his  time,  and  mortgagees  entered 
everywhere  into  possession.  The  rich  were  made  richer, 
but  the  farmer  and  mechanic,  and  all  but  the  very  rich, 
were  ruined.  Trivial  as  were  then  the  expenses  of  the 
Government,  the  Treasury  could  not  meet  them.  Such  was 
the  state  of  things,  that  induced  General  Jackson  to  ask 
the  question, •'  Where  has  the  American  farmer -a  market 
for  his  surplus  produce  ? ' 

To  the  state  of  things  here  described  were  we,  in  1828, 
indebted  for  the  first  thoroughly  national  tariff.  Almost 
from  the  moment  of  its  passage,  activity  and  life  took  the 
place  of  the  palsy,  that  previously  existed.  Furnaces  and 
mills  were  built ;  labor  came  into  demand ;  immigration 
increased,  and  so  large  became,  the  demand,  for  the  products 
of  the  farm,  that  our  markets  scarcely  felt  the  effect  of 
changes  in  that  of  England ;  the  public  revenues  so  rapidly 
increased,  that  it  became  necessary  to  exempt  from  duty 


330  TARIFF. 

tea,  coffee,  and  many  other  articles ;  and  the  public  debt 
was  finally,  extinguished. 

The  history  of  the  world  to  that  hour  presents  no  case 
of  prosperity  so  universal  as  that,  which  here  existed  at 
the  date  of  the  repeal  of  the  great  national  tariff  of  1828. 
Had  it  been  maintained  in  existence,  we  should  have  had 
no  secession  war,  and  at  this  hour  the  South  would  exhibit 
a  state  of  society,  in  which  the  land  owners  had  become  rich, 
while  their  slaves  had  been  gradually  becoming  free,  with 
profit  to  themselves,  to  their  owners  and  the  nation  at 
large.  It  was,  however,  repealed  in  1833,  and  the  repeal 
was  followed  by  a  succession  of  British  free-trade  crises, 
the  whole  ending  in  1842  in  a  state  of  things  directly  the 
reverse  of  that  above  described.  Mills  and  furnaces  were 
closed ;  mechanics  were  starving ;  money  was  scarce  and 
dear ;  land  had  fallen  to  half  its  previous  prices ;  the 
sheriff  was  everywhere  at  work;  banks  were  in  a  state  of 
suspension  ;  states  repudiated  payment  of  their  debts  ;  the 
Treasury  was  unable  to  borrow  a  dollar,  except  at  a  high 
rate  of  interest:  and  bankruptcy  among  merchants  and 
traders  was  so  universal,  that  Congress  found  itself  com- 
pelled to  pass  a  bankrupt  act. 

Again,  and  for  the  third  time,  protection  was  restored 
by  the  passage  of  the  Tariff  Act  of  1842.  Under  it,  in  less 
than  five  years,  the  production  of  iron  rose  from  two  hun- 
dred and  twenty  thousand  tons  to  eight  hundred  thousand 
tons ;  and  so  universal  was  the  prosperity  that,  large  as  was 
the  increase,  it  was  wholly  insufficient  to  meet  the  great 
demand.  Mines  were  everywhere  being  sunk.  Labor  was 
in  great  demand,  and  wages  were  high,  as  a  consequence 
of  which  immigration  speedily  trebled  in  its  amount. 
Money  was  abundant  and  cheap,  and  the  sheriff  found  but 
little  to  do.  Public  and  private  revenues  were  great  be- 
yond all  previous  precedents,  and  throughout  the  land  there 
reigned  a  prosperity  more  universal  than  had,  in  the  whole 
history  of  the  world,  ever  before  been  known. 

Once  more,  in  1846,  however,  did  the  Serpent— prop- 


TARIFF.  331 

erly  represented  on  this  occasion  by  British  free-traders — 
make  his  way  into  Paradise,  and  now  a  dozen  years  elapsed, 
in  the  course  of  which,  notwithstanding  the  discovery  of 
California  mines  money  commanded  a  rate  of  interest 
higher,  as  1  believe,  than  had  ever  been  known  in  the  coun- 
try for  so  long  a  period  of  time.  British  iron  and  cloth 
came  in  and  gold  went  out,  and  with  each  successive  day 
the  dependence  of  our  farmers  on  foreign  markets  became 
more  complete.  With  1857  came  the  culmination  of  the 
system,  merchants  and  manufacturers  being  ruined,  banks 
being  compelled  to  suspend  payment,  and  the  Treasury 
being  reduced  to  a  condition  of  bankruptcy,  nearly  ap- 
proaching that,  which  had  existed  at  the  close  of  the  free- 
trade  periods,  commencing  in  1817  and  1834.  In  the  three 
years  that  followed,  labor  was  everywhere  in  excess ;  wages 
were  low ;  immigration  fell  below  the  point,  at  which  it 
had  stood  twenty  years  before ;  the  home  market  for  food 
diminished,  arid  the  foreign  one  proved  so  utterly  worth- 
less, that  the  whole  export  to  all  the  manufacturing  nations 
of  Europe,  as  I  have  already  stated,  amounted  to  but  little 
more  than  $10,000,000." 

The  losses,  brought  on  our  country  by  a  failure  on  the 
part  of  the  Government  to  steadily  protect  the  great  indus- 
tries of  the  nation,  ever  strikingly  manifest  by  the  loss  to 
the  whole  country  of  a  steam  marine,  which  was  won  for 
us  by  men,  who  deserved  a  better  fate  than  they  received. 
It  was  for  the  want  of  a  few  paltry  millions  to  protect  a 
steam  marine,  so  nobly  won  and  of  such  inestimable  value 
to  our  country — it  was  because  of  the  failure  of  our  Govern- 
ment to  protect  its  "  child  " — that  England  was  permitted, 
by  her  protective  policy  to  her  own  steamships  (at  but  a 
small  cost)  to  distance  us  in  a  race  for  supremacy  in  ocean 
steam  navigation,  and  take  from  us  a  steam  marine,  that 
would  have  been  worth  thousands  of  millions  to  our  coun- 
try, and  would  possibly  have  saved  us  from  the  terrible  war 
through  which  we  have  passed. 


332  TAEIFF. 

INFANT  MANUFACTURES. 

You  refer,  Sir,  with  some  sarcasm,  to  the  "infant  manu- 
factures," which  you  think  have  been  so  long  carried  in  the 
arms  of  the  people,  to  their  wrong  and  cost,  as  you  suppose, 
and  assume  the  superiority  of  European  productiveness, 
and  suggest,  that  our  incapacity  to  manufacture  being  thus 
established,  we  should  abandon  our  effort  at  deliverance 
from  our  industrial  bondage  to  the  Old  World.  To  this,  Sir, 
I  reply  that  while,  as  I  have  stated,  the  countries  of  West- 
ern Europe  have  for  centuries  enjoyed  constant,  persistent 
and  adequate  protection,  never  relaxed,  never  abated,  until 
it  was  rendered  unnecessary  by  the  natural  growth  of  their 
"infant,"  our  manufacturing  system  has  not  had  either 
constant  or  adequate  protection  for  more  than  four  years 
at  a  time,  and  that  only  twice  before  the  Rebellion.  The 
compromise  tariff  of  1833,  being  avowedly  designed  as  a 
measure,  calculated  and  intended  to  lead  toward  free-trade, 
as  the  writer  can  personally  testify  from  his  conversations 
had  with  Mr.  Calhoun  at  the  time. 

You  speak  of  the  "  larcenous  provisions  "  of  tariff  acts  to 
which  you  allude,  as  though  a  great  wrong  had  been  in- 
flicted on  the  masses  of  the  people  for  the  benefit  of  the 
"  class  "  of  manufacturers.  •  You  forget  or  you  ignore  the 
fact,  that  the  time,  when  these  manufacturers  thus  pros- 
pered, labor  was  in  demand  and  wages  high,  immigration 
increased,  farm  products  found  a  large  and  profitable  home 
market,  the  revenue  was  abundant,  merchants  and  farmers 
were  alike  successful,  and  general  prosperity  prevailed. 
You  forget  or  you  ignore  the  fact,  that  in  stimulating  do- 
mestic manufactures  we  but  increase  the  demand' for  agri- 
cultural produce,  and  bring  to  the  farmer's  door  a  market 
more  certain  and  more  profitable,  than  he  can  possibly  find 
abroad. 

You  speak  of  twenty-five  years  (!)  of  "  high  protection," 
as  though  the  manufacturers  of  the  country  alone  were  in- 
terested, putting  aside  entirely  the  consideration  of  the  fact3 


TAEIFF.  333 

that  all  the  taxation,  needed  for  the  nation's  wants,  was 
supplied  from  this  source ;  that  thus  the  visits  of  the  tax- 
gatherer  to  the  fanner  were  entirely  dispensed  with,  and 
most  articles  in  general  consumption  among  our  people, 
such  as  tea  and  coffee,  were  rendered  exempt  from  duty. 

PROFITS    OF   MANUFACTURERS. 

You  indict  the  manufacturers  of  the  United  States  for 
their  selfishness  and  want  of  patriotism,  in  securing  the  enact- 
ment of  protective  laws,  and  contrast  with  it  the  course,  which 
you  allege  to  have  been  pursued  by  the  farmers.  Sir,  I  do  not 
care  to  enter  on  the  ungracious  task  of  comparing  one  class 
of  my  fellow-citizens  with  another,  the  more  so,  as  during 
the  late  fearful  trial,  through  which  our  country  has  passed, 
the  magnanimous  and  self-sacrificing  patriotism  of  them 
both  has  been  so  conspicuously  vindicated ;  but,  as  one  of 
those  implicated  in  the  charge  you  make,  I  may,  perhaps, 
be  permitted  to  state  one  fact  from  my  own  personal  expe- 
rience as  a  manufacturer,  calculated  to  show,  that,  if  we 
had  been  grasping,  as  you  represent,  our  object  of  making 
large  gains  has,  at  least,  not  been  accomplished.  During 
a  period  of  over  thirty  years,  engaged  in  the  manufacture 
of  iron,  the  capital  invested  by  me  has  not  on  the  average 
yielded  me  four  per  cent,  per  annum,  and  this  with  all  the 
skill,  energy  and  perseverance,  which  I  was  able  to  com- 
mand in  promoting  its  profitable  employment ;  and  that 
my  own  case  was  not  exceptional  may  be  gathered  from  the 
fact,  that  during  the  same  period  nearly,  if  not  quite  all  my 
brother  manufacturers,  who  were  engaged  largely  in  the 
same  industry,  were  compelled  to  succumb  to  the  pres- 
sure of  adverse  circumstances,  caused  by  the  fluctuating 
policy  of  the  general  Government,  and  to  pass  into  bank- 
ruptcy. 

Such  has  been  the  experience,  through  which  the  men  of 
enterprise,  genius  and  capital  have  passed,  who  were  in- 
duced to  volunteer  at  the  time  of  the  country's  greatest  need 


334  TAEIFF. 

as  pioneers  in  the  great  work  of  establishing  our  manufac- 
turing independence,  and  at  the  sacrifice,  in  most  cases,  of 
their  own  fortunes,  laid  the  foundation  of  that  noble  fabric 
of  industrial  independence,  which  we  rejoice  to  see  now 
rising  solid  and  symmetrical  in  this  great  land. 

THE  TARIFF  AND  THE  WOOL- GKO WEES. 

That  the  farmers  sought,  and  rightfully  sought,  protec- 
tion, when  their  interests  demanded  it,  the  experience  of 
the  sugar-planters  of  the  South  and  the  wool-growers  of  the 
North  abundantly  testifies  ;  and  I  must  confess  my  surprise 
at  the  representation  you  make  of  the  recent  legislation  in 
favor  of  the  growers  of  wool.  You  say,  "  it  is  believed  by 
many,  that  the  wool-grower  is  at  length,  under  recent  acts 
of  Congress,  equally  protected  with  the  manufacturer.  It 
may  be  so.  The  stable  door  may  be  locked  after  the  horse 
is  stolen.  But  in  the  meantime  the  manufacturer  has  been 
made  rich — has  doubled  and  quadrupled  his  capital,  while 
the  wool-grower  has  grown  poor,  and  in  many  cases  lost  his 
capital." 

You  remember,  Sir,  that  at  the  close  of  the  last  session 
of  Congress,  after  a  bill,  designed  to  amend  the  present 
tariff  law,  had  been  rejected  in  the  Senate,  chiefly  through 
the  influence  of  the  Western  States,  a  wool  tariff  was  sud- 
denly enacted,  having  for  its  special  object  the  interest  of 
the  wool-growers  of  the  country.  For  this  tariff,  I  rejoice 
to  know,  the  true  friends  of  domestic  industry  in  Congress, 
with  a  noble  consistency,  voted,  albeit  their  owrn  plan  of 
legislation  had  but  just  been  defeated  by  the  Representatives 
in  the  Senate  of  these  very  wool-growers.  I  regret,  Sir,  that 
you  do  not  appreciate  the  benefits,  thus  accorded  to  this 
branch  of  agricultural  industry — that  you  do  not,  I  think, 
is  attributable  to  your  failure  to  examine  the  facts — for  the 
very  objection  you  make,  that  the  recent  law  has  not  bene- 
fited wool  production,  has  been  thus  well  answered  in  the 
monthly  report  for  December,  1867,  at  the  Department  of 


TAEIFF.  335 

Agriculture,  in  which,  on  this  subject,  are  the  following 
words : 

"  The  close  of  the  war  found  full  supplies  of  woollen 
goods,  and  immense  stores  of  unused  army  clothing ;  and 
in  anticipation  of  legislation,  affecting  importation  nearly 
as  many  woollens  were  introduced  in  a  single  year  as  were 
imported  during  the  entire  period  of  the  war.  In  this  state 
of  facts,  utter  annihilation  of  wool-growing  and  manufac- 
turing was  only  prevented  by  the  operation  of  the  law  in 
repressing  further  importation,  and  inspiring  confidence  in 
the  future,  when  the  immense  surplus  should  be  ex- 
hausted. It  has  produced  all  the  advantages,  that  its  most 
sanguine  friends  could  claim  for  it,  in  preventing,  in  a 
large  degree,  ruinous  depression  and  the  sacrifice  of  flocks, 
and  in  paving  the  way  for  entire  success  for  the  future, 
which  shall  benefit'  every  interest  of  agriculture  and  every 
branch  of  industry." 


THE  MOEEILL  TAEIFF. 


You  speak  with  vehement  execration  of  the  Morrill  tariff 
of  1861,  as  "  capping  the  climax  in  the  history  of  this  in- 
iquitous legislation ; "  but  entirely  overlook  the  circum- 
stances, under  which  that  measure  was  passed.  The  free- 
trade  tariff  of  1857  has  just  produced  the  effects,  which 
were  expected  from  it  by  the  wisest  thinkers  in  the  land, 
and  the  condition  of  things,  then  existing,  was  well  described 
in  the  following  extract  from  Mr.  Carey  :  "  With  1857  came 
the  culmination  of  the  system.  Merchants  and  manufac- 
turers became  ruined,  banks  being  compelled  to  suspend 
payment,  and  the  Treasury  being  reduced  to  a  condition  of 
bankruptcy.  In  the  three  years  that  followed,  labor  \\  as 
everywhere  in  excess.  Wages  were  low,  immigration  be- 
low the  point,  at  which  it  had  stood  for  twenty  years  be- 
fore, the  home  market  for  food  diminished,  and  the  foreign 
one  proved  so  utterly  worthless,  that  the  whole  export  to 
all  the  manufacturing  nations  of  Europe  amounted  to  little 
more  than  $10,000,000."  Such  was  the  condition  of  things, 


336 


TAEIFF. 


that  suggested  the  necessity  of  the  Morrill  tariff,  which  was 
a  change  in  the  policy  of  the  country,  the  necessity  of  which 
had  been  made  palpable  by  the  undeniable  failures  of  the 
free-trade  policy  of  1857.  But  never  was  a  law  so  mis- 
represented as  this  has  been.  Forgive  me,  Sir,  if  I  express  a 
doubt  as  to  your  having  yourself  accurate  information  on  the 
subject. 

THE  PROTECTIVE  POLICY  OF  FRANCE. 

To  illustrate,  I  shall  compare  it  in  those  branches,  with 
which  I  am  myself  most  familiar  (connected  with  the  iron 
industry)  with  the  celebrated  Anglo-French  treaty,  adopted 
a  few  months  previously  between  the  French  and  English 
Governments,  and  the  praises  of  which  have -been  so  widely 
sung  as  a  glorious  triumph  of  "  free-trade  principles."  It 
was  declared  to  be  an  abandonment  by  France  of  her  "  pro- 
tective system." 


NAMES  OF  AKTICLES. 

Quanti- 
ties. 

French       duties 
under        the 
Anglo  -  French 
treaty  in  Ameri- 
can money. 

United    States  duties 
under    the    Morrill 
tariff. 

Iron,  pig  and  old.  cast  iron     ..... 

ton. 
ton. 
ton. 
ton. 
ton. 

ton. 
ton. 
ton. 
cwt. 
cwt. 

ton. 
ton. 

ton. 
Ib. 

* 

Ib. 
Ib. 

$4  39 

6  35 

13  68 
13  68 
25  41  to 
31  28 

8  30 
17  58 
29  32 
97| 

i  m 

19  54 
25  40 

48  85 
l-i% 

2 

&i 

^ 

$6  00 
6  00 
15  00 
12  00 
20  00  to 
25  00 

11  20 
20  00 
22  40 
1  12 
2  24 

30  to  33 

44  80 

44  80 
l£c.  and  2c. 

2c.  and  15  <p  c. 

2i  and  15  $  c. 
30  $c. 

Iron,  sheet  

Iron    manufactures  ;     pipes    and 
solid  columns    .                   . 

Iron  manufactures;  heavy  wrought 
Iron  manufactures  ;  small  wares  .  . 
Iron  manufactures  ;  cut  nails  .... 
Iron  manufactures  ;  wrought  nails 
Iron    manufactures  ;     anchors, 

Iron     manufactures  ;     tubes     of 

Iron      manufactures  ;     tubes     of 
wrought  iron,  small         

Steel  in  sheets  above  Vy  of  an  inch 
thick   

Steel  in  sheets  under  -fa  of  an  inch 
thick     

Steel  tools  in  pure  steel.       

TAEIFF.  337 

Its  general  character  may  be  learned  from  the  above 
table,  exhibiting  the  duties  on  English  goods,  imported  into 
France,  and  the  duties  levied  on  the  same  kind  of  goods 
under  the  Morrill  tariff. 

From  an  examination  of  these  figures  it  will  be  seen,  that 
the  actual  duties  on  these  goods  were  nearly,  if  not  quite, 
as  heavy  (on  the  average)  in  the  "  Free  -Trade  treaty,"  as  in 
the  "  iniquitous  Morrill  tariff,"  and  if  the  difference  be- 
tween the  price  of  labor  in  France  and  the  United  States 
be  taken  into  account,  more  strictly  "  protective."  And 
this,  Sir,  is  the  climax  of  iniquitous  legislation,  which  you 
regard  with  such  abhorrence  ! 

HENEY  C.  CAEEY. 

You  mistake  in  supposing,  that  I  quoted  from  the  works 
of  that  worthy  and  able  man,  Matthew  Carey.  I  did  not, 
but  I  did  from  his  illustrious  son,  Henry  C.  Carey,  who  is 
the  author  of  that  system  of  social  science,  which,  rising 
above,  although  never  going  contrary  to,  the  objects  of 
mere  economy,  seeks  to  harmonize  and  advance  the  social 
and  moral,  as  well  as  the  material  interests  of  mankind ; 
which  expounds  and  maintains  the  true  and  harmonious  in- 
terests of  industry,  and  seeks  by  the  elevation  of  the  indi- 
vidual man  to  promote  the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  the 
nation.  This  prophet  may  not  as  yet  have  accorded  to  him 
in  his  own  country  the  honor,  which  is  his  due,  but  already 
do  the  principles  of  his  benign  philosophy  begin  to  prevail. 
His  works  have  been  translated  into  six  of  the  Continental 
languages,  his  teachings  are  studied  by  the  statesmen  and 
savans  of  Europe,  and  the  people  of  Russia,  Germany  and 
Hungary,  as  well  as  of  Italy  and  France,  have  to  appreciate 
his  wisdom. 

Here  the  shallow  sophisms  of  the  teachers  of  a  foreign 
school,  to  whom  you  refer,  have  gained  a  temporary  popu- 
larity, but  the  light  of  truth  is  now  penetrating  our  schools 
and  colleges,  as  well  as  our  farms  and  workshops  ;  and  the 
American  mind  is  being  imbued  with  the  necessity  of  es- 
22 


338  t      TAKIFF. 

tablishing  a  great  system  of  national  industrial  indepen- 
dence, whatever  the  "  philosophers "  of  Manchester,  or 
Birmingham,  or  Paris  may  say. 


THE  NATIONAL  POLICY. 

I  uphold,  on  the  very  ground  that  you  oppose,  a  protec- 
tive tariff — its  bearing  on  the  great  body  of  consumers,  es- 
pecially the  poorer  classes,  for  the  reason  that  nothing  can 
be  purchased  cheap  of  foreigners,  that  must  be  purchased 
at  the  cost  of  leaving  our  own  labor  unemployed  and  our 
own  good  raw  materials  unused. 

It  is  because  all  experience  has  demonstrated,  that  the 
surest  and  shortest  way  to  cheapen  the  cost  of  goods  to  the 
consumer  is  to  foster  their  home  production,  that  I  am  an 
advocate  for  protection. 

It  is  because  good  wages  are  necessary  to  the  comfort, 
the  independence  and  the  elevation  of  the  workingman, 
that  I  protest  against  bringing  his  labor  into  competition 
with  that  of  the  workmen  of  Europe. 

It  is  because  I  desire  the  farmer  to  have  a  near,  constant 
and  profitable  market  for  his  meats,  grain,  fruit  and  vege- 
tables, and  manure  to  refresh  his  land,  that  I  desire  the  in- 
dustry of  the  country  to  be  diversified  and  the  cost  of  trans- 
portation diminished. 

It  is  because  I  desire  the  manufacturer  to  have  security 
in  the  investment  of  his  capital  and  the  employment  of  his 
energy  in  manufacturing  enterprise,  that  I  desire  a  fixed 
and  stable  tariff  policy. 

It  is  because  I  desire  such  a  development  of  the  resources 
of  the  country,  as  will  render  labor  profitable  and  capital 
remunerative,  and  so  induce  the  immigration  of  men,  of 
money  and  laborers  from  Europe,  that  I  advocate  this  great 
national  policy.  Not  because  I  wish  the  enrichment  or 
elevation  of  one  class  at  the  cost  of  another,  but  because  I 
long  for  the  prosperity  of  the  entire  people,  whose  interest 
in  this  question  of  national  production  is  one. 


TAKIFF.  339 

It  is  because  I  desire  the  political  power  and  the  finan- 
cial honor  of  this  nation  to  be  established  and  vindicated 
before  the  world,  that  I  seek  to  maintain  the  tax-paying 
power  of  the  people  by  promoting,  by  wise  and  salutary 
legislation,  the  general  prosperity. 

With  regard  to  the  question  of  indirect  taxation,  on 
which  you  speak  so  strongly,  the  length  to  which  this  letter 
has  extended  prohibits  any  protracted  comment ;  but  I  may 
say,  that  the  experience  of  all  commercial  countries  from 
time  immemorial,  has  approved  such  taxation.  England,  so 
well  versed  in  the  art  of  tax-levying,  has  found  custom 
duties  her  most  effective  and  convenient  method.  By  the 
same  means  and  with  a  facility  perhaps  more  remarkable, 
the  United  States  have  from  the  beginning  mainly  supplied 
the  wants  of  her  Treasury. 

On  this  subject  I  will  only  further  add  the  warning  voice 
of  Chancellor  Kent  against  a  reliance  on  direct  taxation  to 
maintain  the  Government  and  pay  the  national  debt.  He 
assures  us  "  that  as  soon  as  the  old  confederacy  of  States 
was  ratified,  the  States  began  to  fail  in  a  prompt  and  faith- 
ful obedience  to  the  laws ;  and,  as  danger  receded,  instan- 
ces of  neglect  became  more  frequent,  and  by  the  time  of 
the  peace  of  1783,  the  delinquencies  of  one  State  became 
the  apology  for  another,  until  the  idea  of  supplying  the  pe- 
cuniary wants  of  the  nation  from  requisitions  on  the  State 
was  found  to  be  a  phantom." 

With  sincere  personal  regard,  I  am,  dear  Sir,  yours  very 
faithfully,  PETER  COOPEK. 

Hon.  Heman  J.  Kedfield,  Batavia,  N.  Y. 


PETER  COOPER'S  ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  AMERICAN  INDUS- 
TRIAL LEAGUE,  MAY,  1868. 

GENTLEMEN. — I  have  taken  the  liberty  to  invite  you  to 
this  Conference,  as  the  friend  of  American  industry.  The 
object,  as  expressed  in  the  letter  of  invitation,  is  to  take 
counsel  as  to  the  present  condition  of  our  industrial  aud 


340  TAEIFF. 

financial  interests,  and  to  enforce  the  necessity  of  increased 
efforts  to  awaken  and  instruct  public  sentiment  on  those  sub- 
jects ;  and  also,  I  may  add,  to  encourage  the  adoption  of 
those  measures,  that  will  most  effectually  promote  all  the 
substantial  interests  of  our  common  country. 

The  present  time,  Gentlemen,  is  peculiarly  appropriate  for 

such  a  conference.     We  are  on  the  eve  of  a  new  adminis- 

/ 

tration,  which,  we  have  reason  to  believe,  will  be  character- 
ized by  a  marked  and  peculiar  anxiety  to  restore  public  con- 
fidence and  credit,  as  the  best  means  to  invigorate  all  the 
varied  industries  of  a  nation.  We  believe,  that  the  man, 
who,  we  hope,  will  soon  stand  at  the  head  of  that  adminis- 
tration, will  surround  himself  with  men  in  full  sympathy 
with  every  industrial  interest.  Let  us  then  give  a  word,  not 
only  of  counsel  but  encouragement,  to  the  man,  to  whose 
hands  may  so  soon  be  confided  the  guidance  of  the  ship  of 
state. 

More  than  three  years,  Gentlemen,  have  elapsed  since 
Lee's  surrender  and  the  final  suppression  of  the  Rebellion, 
and  yet,  although  financiers,  economists  in  the  Cabinet  and 
in  Congress,  liave  during  all  that  time  been  exercising  their 
science  and  their  skill  to  bring  about  specie  payment,  the 
premium  on  gold  is  nearly  as  high  as  it  was  on  that  sad  day, 
on  which  the  martyred  Lincoln  found  his  death ;  and  to  all 
external  appearance  we  are  as  far  from  that  result  now  as 
we  were  at  that  time.  This  fact  may  be  humiliating  and 
discouraging  to  us  as  Americans,  who  know  the  wealth  and 
capacity  of  our  country,  who  know,  too,  the  unalterable  pur- 
pose of  our  people  to  maintain  at  all  cost  the  nation's  credit, 
and  to  secure  the  national  solvency,  against  all  the  plots  of 
repudiators  or  rebels,  whether  at  the  North  or  at  the  South. 
But  it  is  surely  suggestive  of  the  necessity  of  adopting,  with- 
out a  day's  delay,  a  change  in  the  financial  policy  of  the 
country,  which  has  thus  worked  so  badly. 

The  three  years,  which  have  thus  passed,  have  been 
marked  by  enormous,  unprecedented  importations  of  goods, 
the  products  of  foreign  labor.  "We  have  thus"  (to  em- 


TAEIFF.  341 

ploy  the  language  of  a  Gentleman,  to  whom  the  producers 
of  this  country  owe  a  debt  of  lasting  gratitude  for  his  in- 
domitable and  useful  efforts  in  behalf  of  the  industry  of  the 
country,  I  mean  Mr.  E.  B.  Ward,  of  Detroit),  "  paid  to 
foreign  countries  all  our  cotton,  corn  and  other  of  our  pro- 
ducts, that  they  would  purchase  ;  we  have  paid  them  all  the 
accumulated  gold  and  silver  we  had  before  the  war  ;  we  have 
paid  them  twelve  hundred  millions  of  dollars  worth  of  our 
State,  railroad  and  national  securities,  which  Europe  now 
holds  and  upon  which  she  receives  annual  interest ;  and  we 
are  still  paying  her  all  the  precious  metals  we  obtain  from 
Our  mines." 

We  know,  Gentlemen,  that  the  national  debt,  the  price 
paid  for  the  nation's  life,  can  only  be  paid  by  the  labor  of 
the  people  of  the  United  States,  by  increasing  the  production 
of  the  country  and  securing  the  industrial  prosperity  of  all 
classes  of  our  citizens — and  yet  the  policy,  which  we  advo- 
cate, of  protecting  and  stimulating  our  domestic  industry  to 
accomplish  this,  is  resisted  and  ridiculed  bytmen  in  public 
position  and  large  holders  of  our  national  securities,  as  well 
as  by  that  large  and  powerful  class,  especially  in  our  sea- 
board cities,  whose  pecuniary  interests,  as  importers,  agents, 
and  merchants,  are  directly  and  deeply  identified  with  those 
of  the  manufacturers  of  Great  Britain  and  Continental 
Europe — and  so  we  find  efforts  most  zealous  and  persistent 
are  being  made  to  circulate  among  the  masses  of  our  peo- 
ple the  unsound  and  impracticable  theories  of  free  trade  and 
an  immediate  return  to  specie  payment,  while  we  are  a 
debtor  nation  to  the  amount  of  some  sixteen  hundred  mil- 
lions of  United  States,  State,  railroad,  and  municipal  securi- 
ties, on  which  we  are  paying  interest  to  foreign  nations,  with 
a  balance  of  trade  against  us  in  gold  of  $136,000,000  during 
the  year  1867. 

What  we  require  for  a  healthy  resumption  of  specie  pay- 
ment, is  a  relief  from  all  excessive  internal  taxation,  with 
such  an  adjustment  of  duties  on  foreign  imports,  as  will 
bring  the  balance  of  trade  in  favor  of  the  United  States. 


342  TAEIFF. 

"We  find,  in  the  face  of  these  facts,  that  eminent  Amer- 
ican citizens,  and  eminent  American  journals,  have  lent  and 
are  lending  their  powerful,  but  ill-directed  influence,  to  the 
furtherance  of  this  fatal  policy. 

Perhaps,  it  should  not  be  thought  strange  or  wonderful, 
if  great  and  good  men  should  imperceptibly  run  into  errors, 
in  an  effort  to  reduce  so  complicated  and  difficult  a  subject, 
as  that  of  free  trade  and  protection  to  a  positive  science. 

Science,  although  it  may  be  represented  by  a  line  of  no 
variation,  will,  nevertheless,  be  better  understood  by  calling 
science,  knowledge  demonstrated  by  facts,  wrought  out  in 
the  actual  experience  of  mankind.  Experience  teaches,  as 
the  poet  says,  that  "  with  man  a  thousand  movements  scarce 
one  purpose  gain,  while  with  God,  one  sirtgle  can  its  end  pro- 
duce, and  serve  to  second  to  some  other  use." 

In  our  efforts  to  carry  out  this  beautiful  theory  of  free 
trade,  we  find  ourselves  compelled,  by  circumstances  beyond 
our  control,  to  meet  and  overcome  difficulties,  like  the  mar- 
iner, who  desirdfe  to  go  to  a  distant  part  of  the  world. 

The  mariner  has  the  north  star,  his  chronometer  and  com- 
pass, to  guide  him  by  night — he  has  the  sun,  his  compass, 
quadrant  and  chart  to  aid  him  in  his  course  by  day,  which 
enable  him  to  pass  through  winding  channels  and  around 
islands  and  shoals,  that  are  directly  between  him  and  the 
object  of  his  desire.  So  it  is  with  us ;  we  are  compelled  to 
find  our  way  by  the  light  of  experience,  out  of  the  artificial 
windings,  and  around  the  islands  and  shoals,  that  ignorance 
and  avarice  have  placed  in  the  path  of  a  world's  progress. 

The  true  object  of  all  government  is  to  prevent  the  strong 
from  oppressing  the  weak,  and  to  obtain  for  a  whole  people 
that  security  and  those  comforts,  which  the  same  people 
could  not  obtain  for  themselves  by  acting  in  their  individual 
capacity. 

The  very  idea  of  a  government  carries  with  it  the  idea  of 
the  embodied  power  and  wisdom  of  a  people.  A  power  to 
be  used  to  establish  justice,  and  promote  the  general  wel- 
fare. 


TAEIFF.  343 

A  wise  government,  acting  for  the  good  of  all,  would 
carefully  examine  so  important  a  subject,  as  that  of  free 
trade  or  protection,  before  adopting  either,  as  a  matter,  or 
system  of  state  policy. 

The  subject  of  free  trade  and  protection  is  one,  about 
which  a  constant  conflict  has  been  going  on  for  ages,  and 
about  which  volumes  have  been  written  without  coming 
near  to  a  settlement  of  public  opinion  on  what  is,  or  would 
be,  the  wisest  policy  for  a  nation  to  adopt. 

What  renders  the  subject  of  free  trade  or  protection  so 
difficult  to  be  understood  and  applied  as  a  positive  science, 
is  the  fact,  that  what  would  be  wise  and  best  for  one  state 
and  condition  of  society,  would  be  altogether  unwise  and 
inapplicable,  when  the  wants  of  the  same  people  and  the 
means  of  supplying  them,  had  changed  with  their  condi- 
tion. This  we  have  verified  in  our  own  experience,  in  our 
own  struggles  for  the  nation's  life. 

A  wise  government,  in  our  altered  condition,  would  en- 
deavor to  ascertain  how  far  free  trade  or  protection,  as  a 
system  of  national  policy,  would  affect  the  industry  of  a 
country  under  the  circumstances,  in  which  the  country  is 
then  placed.  A  wise  government  should  strengthen  its  own 
independence,  by  encouraging  the  manufacture  of  every 
article  of  necessity,  where  the  raw  material  is  in  as  high  a 
degree  of  perfection,  as  it  can  be  found  in  any  other  country, 
and  where  the  material  can  be  wrought  into  useful  forms, 
with  as  small  an  expense  of  human  latior  as  in  other  coun- 
tries. None  will  contend,  that  we,  as  individuals,  or  as  a 
nation,  should  depend  upon  others  for  those  things,  that  we 
can  manufacture  for  ourselves  cheaper  and  better  than  we 
can  buy  them  from  foreign  nations. 

It  may  often  happen  with  a  young  nation,  where  there  is 
a  want  of  capital,  machinery  and  experience,  that  it  will  re- 
quire, for  a  short  time,  some  governmental  encouragement 
to  enable  capital  to  combine  and  operate  successfully,  so  as 
to  encourage  the  industry  of  a  country  to  put- its  raw  mate- 
rials into  useful  forms  for  its  own  consumption.  Such  gov- 


344  TARIFF. 

ernmental  protection  may  be  given  by  bounties,  or  by  inci- 
dental protection  in  the  form  of  duties  on  similar  articles, 
imported  from  foreign  countries. 

The  advocates  of  free  trade  attempt  to  show  the  fallacy  of 
protecting  American  industry,  by  the  errors  and  mistakes, 
that  the  government  has  been  drawn  into  by  designing  poli- 
ticians, who  have  persuaded  the  government  to  establish  cus- 
tom houses,  where  there  was  literally  nothing  to  collect,  so 
that  in  some  instances  to  collect  a  dollar,  it  may  have  cost 
one  hundred  dollars.  With  this  species  of  argument  the  ad- 
vocates of  free  trade  are  trying  to  demolish  all  protection  to 
home  manufactures.  They  do  not  tell  us,  as  they  should  do, 
that  after  all  the  mistakes  the  government  has  made,'  that 
the  actual  cost  of  collecting  the  revenue  is  but  three  per  cent., 
which  is  cheaper  than  it  could  be  collected  in  any  other  way. 
That  system,  which  will  most  effectually  promote  the  industry 
of  a  nation,  and  secure  the  rewards  of  labor  to  the  hands 
that  earn  it,  may  at  all  times  be  relied  on  as  the  best  system, 
a  government  can  adopt.  I  believe,  that  it  will  not  be 
difficult  to  show,  that  there  are  conditions  in  a  nation's  life, 
when  the  extremes  of  free  trade,  or  extreme  laws  for  protec- 
tion, would  either  of  them  derange  the  industry  of  a  country, 
and  thereby  work -great  national  ruin.  To  show  this  clearly 
in  a  few  words  we  need  only  call  to  mind  the  fact,  that  all 
nations  pass  through  changes,  which  are  entirely  beyond 
their  control.  All  nations  commence  in  weakness,  wanting 
all  that  is  needed  to  maintain  a  comfortable  existence.  Such 
is  the  dependence  of  one  man  upon  another,  that  the  farmer 
requires  the  help  of  the  blacksmith,  the  wheelwright,  the 
carpenter  and  mason,  who  are  indispensable  to  his  comfort 
and  success.  These  and  a  variety  of  other  branches  of  manu- 
facturing industries,  form  a  valuable  home  market  for  the 
farmer's  products,  and  at  the  same  time  leave  the  refuse  to 
enrich  the  land,  that  feeds  them. 

Nothing  can  be  more  clear  and  certain  than  the  fact,  that 
it  is  impossible  for  us,  as  a  nation,  to  buy  anything  cheap 
from  foreign  countries,  that  must  be  bought  at  the  cost  of 


TAEIFP.  345 

leaving  our  own  labor  unemployed,  and  our  own  good  raw 
materials  unused.  A  well-directed  system  of  diversified  in- 
dustry will  always  be  found  to  be  the  surest  source  of  national 
wealth  and  individual  welfare. 

The  time  has  come,  when  every  interest  of  our  country  re- 
quires, that  the  laxity,  which  has  marked  the  expenditures 
of  the  people's  money,  since  the  opening  of  the  war,  must 
be  summarily  stopped.  All  unnecessary  expenses  of  every 
kind  must  be  cut  off,  the  most  rigid  economy  ^n  our  necessary 
expenses  must  be  enforced — the  frauds  and  peculations  of 
office  holders,  which  have  grown  to  such  frightful  magni- 
tude, must  be  exposed  and  prevented  ;  and  I  am  glad  to  say, 
that  I  have  reason  to  know  that,  if  Mr.  Wade  is  called  upon 
to  assume  the  Presidency,  the  force  of  his  administration 
will  be  directed  to  this  object  of  enforcing  frugality  in  our 
expenditures  and  integrity  in  our  officers. 

Our  Industrial  League,  Gentlemen,  has  labored  now  for 
nearly  twelve  months  in  the  promotion  of  the  objects  I  have 
here  adverted  to.  It  has  labored,  not  ostentatiously,  or  with 
much  parade  before  the  public,  but  yet  assiduously  and 
effectively.  Its  obj  ect  has  been  to  disseminate  widely  through 
the  country  the  knowledge  of  facts  and  arguments,  bearing 
on  this  question,  and  it  has  honestly  sought  the  enlighten- 
ment of  the  people,  in  regard  to  it.  In  pursuance  of  this 
object,  it  has  established  as  its  organ  The  National  American, 
which  is  recognized  as  an  able  and  instructive  exponent  of 
our  policy,  and  has  been  the  means  of  circulating  a  vast 
amount  of  valuable  information  on  the  question,  of  which 
it  treats,  through  Leagues  formed  in  different  States. 

It  has  inaugurated  the  issue  of  a  series  of  brief  popular 
tracts  (of  which  you  see  specimens  before  you)  calculated,  in 
an  attractive  and  graphic  manner,  to  present  the- leading  ar- 
guments for  protection,  and  to  refute  the  impolicy  of  free 
trade  in  the  present  condition  of  our  country.  It  has  caused 
the  delivery  through  the  North  and  West  of  a  number  of 
speeches  and  addresses  by  gifted  and  trusted  men,  which 
have  already  produced  a  deep  effect  upon  the  Western  mind ; 


346  TAEIFF. 

and  it  has  been  useful  in  furnishing  to  friendly  journals  in 
all  sections  of  the  country  original  and  early  information  on 
industrial  and  economical  subjects,  which  is  of  value  to  our 
friends  of  the  Press  and  the  people,  among  whom  they  cir- 
culate. 

It  has  labored  earnestly,  and  not  without  advantage,  in  the 
effort  to  secure  the  abolition  of  the  manufacturers'  tax.  The 
League  is  thus  engaged  in  a  go.od  and  useful  work,  and  it 
only  needs  enlarged  pecuniary  support,  in  order  greatly  to 
increase  the  value  of  its  labor. 

We  should  not  forget,  that  English  merchants  once  peti- 
tioned their  Government  to  "  discourage  the  woollen  manu- 
facture in  Ireland,"  in  order  to  force  all  Irish  wool  to  pass 
through  English  looms,  before  being  converted  into  cloth  for 
their  own  consumption.  To  accomplish  this,  according  to 
Adam  Smith,  the  government  of  England  "made  war  to 
obtain  colonies  for  customers." 

In  1710,  the  House  of  Commons  declared  that  "  the  erec- 
tion of  manufactories  in  the  colonies  lessened  their  depen- 
dence on  Great  Britain.  In  1750,  the  erection  of  any  mill 
for  rolling  or  slitting  iron  was  prohibited  by  law.  In  1765, 
it  was  made  a  heavy  penalty  to  export  artisans  or  machinery 
of  any  kind  to  the  colonies. 

I  thank,  you,  gentlemen,  for  the  patience,  with  which  you 
have  listened  to  these  remarks. 


LETTER  OF  HON.  JOHN  COVODE,  M.C.,  TO  PETER  COOPER. 

"  HOUSE  OF  KEPKESENTATIVES,  April  24,  1868. 

"  MY  DEAR  SIR  :  The  pressure  of  public  duties  will  deny  me 
the  pleasure  of  participating  in  person  at  "  the  Conference 
of  the  American  Industrial  League"  on  the  28th  instant, 
but  my  most  earnest  sympathies  will  be  present  and  active 
on  an  occasion  of  such  interest  and  importance. 

There  never  was  a  period  in  the  history  of  the  country, 
when  the  wisdom,  if  not  the  necessity,  of  protecting  our 
domestic  industry,  was  more  apparent  than  at  the  present 


TAEIFF.  347 

time,  when  an  unaccustomed  national  debt  and  taxation  rest 
so  heavily  upon  every  branch  of  enterprise,  and  burden  so 
seriously  the  labor  of  those,  who  earn  their  bread  by  the 
sweat  of  their  brow. 

The  fact  is  painfully  true,  that  more  labor  is  now  un- 
employed throughout  the  country  than  was  ever  before 
known,  in  Comparison  to  the  actual  population,  and  ex- 
perience demonstrates,  that  crime  increases  in  proportion  to 
the  extent  oi  idleness.  The  primary  cause  for  this  state  of 
things  is  to  be  found  in  the  excessive  importations,  which, 
not  only  enter  into  competition  with  and  destroy  our  infant 
manufactures,  but  work  a  double  injury  by  the  drain  of  our 
precious  metals  and  equally  precious  Government  Securities. 
Under  this  ruinous  system,  the  American  people  are  sus- 
taining the  cheap  and  pauper  labor  of  Europe,  and  through 
it  the  despotism  of  the  old  world,  at  the  expense  of  our  own 
free,  intelligent  and  honest  industry.  With  a  soil  teeming 
with  mineral  and  agricultural  wealth  of  every  description, 
we  are  annually  importing  three  or  four  hundred  millions  of 
the  products  of  European  agriculture  and  mines  in  the  form 
of  manufactured  fabrics,  thus  augmenting  the  burdens,  that 
already  sufficiently  oppress  American  labor,  and  stifling  its 
prosperous  development. 

Protection  is  a  natural  law,  by  which  every  country  seeks 
to  promote  the  welfare  of  its  own  industry,  and  which  those 
practise  most  thoroughly,  who,  like  England,  shout  the 
loudest  for  so-called  Free  Trade.  The  nation,  which  neglects 
this  duty,  must  expect  to  pay  a  severe  penalty  of  privation 
and  poverty.  Its  broad  and  generous  principle  is  to  bring 
the  consumers  and  producers  near  together,  to  diversify  the 
pursuits  of  labor,  to  establish  harmony  and  unity  among 
them  all  and,  by  well  recompensed  employment,  to  instruct, 
elevate  and  dignify  the  working  man,  so  as  to  fit  him  for  all 
the  duties,  and  to  entitle  him  to  enjoy  all  the  responsibilities 
of  an  American  citizen. 

Aside  from  this  economic  view,  protection  is  the  most 
patent  and  practical  element  of  reconstruction,  that  can  be 


348  TAKIFF. 

applied  to  the  Southern  communities,  because  it  is  that 
which,  with  wise  legislation,  will  be  most  permanent,  and 
which  addresses  itself  directly  to  the  reparation  of  that  ruin 
and  prostration,  which  are  the  natural  consequences  of  an 
unprovoked  Rebellion.  When  the  interests  of  a  people  are 
harmonious  and  work  together  by  a  common  impulse,  poli- 
tical discontent  must  cease  to  exist.  If  the  Tariff  of  1842, 
modified  by  experience,  had  been  permitted  to  stand,  seces- 
sion would  have  never  raised  its  parricidal  arm  in  the  South, 
and  slavery  would  have  been  extinguished  by  natural  causes, 
without  commotion  or  bloodshed.  Let  us  not  forget  that 
instruction  in  the  future,  or  fail  to  remember,  that  the  in- 
fluence of  British  Free  Traders  and  their  allies,  who  over- 
threw that  beneficent  policy  in  1847,  and  thus  planted  the 
seeds,  which  expanded  into  civil  war,  in  1861,  is  again  at 
work  and  seeking  a  new  field  for  its  pernicious  designs. 
Protection  is  a  bond  of  union  for  the  whole  country,  North 
and  South,  East  and  West.  With  it,  all  sectional  jealousies 
will  disappear,  and  therefore  its  encouragement  becomes  a 
patriotic  duty.  With  high  respect, 

JOHN  COVODE. 
HON.  PETER  COOPER." 


"  UNITED  STATES  SENATE  CHAMBER, 

WASHINGTON,  April  17,  1868. 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  I  have  received  your  favor  of  the  13th  inst., 
requesting  me  to  attend  a  conference  of  the  friends  of 
American  industry  on  the  28th  inst. 

I  regret,  that  .the  pressure  of  my  public  duties  here  will 
not  permit  me  to  leave  Washington  for  the  purpose  in- 
dicated. I  have  much  pleasure  in  expressing  to  you  my 
entire  appreciation  of  the  objects  of  your  association,  and 
my  earnest  wishes  for  its  complete  success. 

Yery  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

H.  WILSON. 

HON.  PETER  COOPER,  New  York." 


\ 


TAEIFF.  349 

"  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON  CITY,  April  25, 1868. 

"  PETER  COOPER,  Esq.,  President  of  the  American  Indus- 
trial League :  Yours  of  13th  inst.,  inviting  rny  attendance 
at  a  Conference  of  the  friends  of  American  industry  in 
New  York  on  28th  inst.,  is  received.  My  duties  here  will 
prevent  my  attendance.  It  has  been  a  life-long  opinion 
with  me,  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  American  people  to  pro- 
mote, protect  and  encourage  the  interests  of  American  labor ; 
to  stimulate  and  render  profitable  domestic  production, 
whether  agricultural,  mining  or  manufacturing. 

The  country  cannot  long  endure  the  excessive  importa- 
tion, now  going  on  to  the  ruin  of  our  own  industry,  while 
the  interests  of  foreign  capital  alone  are  promoted  thereby. 
Kespectfully,  WM.  LAURENCE." 


FREE  TRADE — ITS  EFFECTS  ON  THE  FARMER. 

In  my  letter  to  the  Hon.  James  Brooks  in  reply  to  a 
speech,  made  by  him  in  favor  of  free  trade,  I  say : 

I  am  informed  from  Washington,  that  Mr.  Brooks  is  now 
ready  "to  mount  on  a  peddler's  wagon  and  ride  through  the 
agricultural  districts  of  the  country,  exhibiting  hoes,  shovels, 
axes,  bars,  chains,  rods,  knives,  forks,  cottons  and  woollens, 
to  demonstrate  to  the  eyes  of  the  people  the  enormous  taxa- 
tion, imposed  on  them  by  the  existing  tariff." 

Before  he  commences  this  journey  among  the  farmers,  I 
propose  to  share  with  him  a  large  part  of  the  expense  on 
condition,  that  he  will  inform  the  farmers  as  he  goes  through 
the  country,  that,  according  to  Mr.  Wells'  report,  there  are 
one  million  of  men,  now  employed  in  the  manufacture  of 
those  articles,  so  indispensable  to  every  farmer. 

I  want  him  to  ascertain  from  the  farmers,  how  many  mil- 
lions of  bushels  of  their  grain  and  all  other  agricultural  pro- 
ducts are  annually  consumed  by  these  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  the  working  men  of  our  country.  I  want  him  to  be  very 


350  TAEIFF. 

particular,  as  he  goes  along,  to  show  the  farmers  how  per- 
fectly insignificant  the  amount  of  grain  is,  that  has  been 
sold  abroad,  when  compared  with  the  amount,  that  is  an- 
nually consumed  by  the  men,  now  employed  in  making  the 
various  articles  he  enumerates.  It  will  be  well,  as  he  comes 
in  contact  with  the  farmers,  to  ascertain,  where  they  expect 
to  find  a  market,  when  those  hundreds  of  thousands,  who 
now  consume  their  produce,  are  forced  to  turn  farmers  and 
come  in  competition  with  them  for  a  market. 

I  hope  Mr.  Brooks  will  quote  from  Mr.  Wells'  report, 
where  he  states,  "that  the  American  agriculturist  does  not 
command  his  own  price  in  a  foreign  market,  but  the  price 
commands  him,"  as  he  is  compelled  "to  sell  at  the  price  of- 
fered in  London,  the  central  market  of  the  world"  where 
farm  labor  is  hired  for  one-half  the  price,  paid  for  it  in  this 
country. 

It  will  be  a  matter  of  the  greatest  interest  for  the  farmers 
to  know,  that  Mr.  Wells  says  "  there  are  now  one  million 
of  skilled  artisans  in  our  country,  making  the  largest  and 
most  valuable  consuming  class  in  this  community." 

Mr.  Brooks  should  tell  the  farmers,  that  these  are  the 
men,  with  their  families,  employers  and  laborers,  who  con- 
sume a  large  part  of  all  they  have  to  sell,  and  are  now  pay- 
ing them  more  than  they  could  get  in  any  other  part  of  the 
world. 

]•  hope  Mr.  Brooks  will  be  sure,  as  he  passes  through  the 
country,  to  tell  the  farmer,  that  he  and  his  friends  are  doing 
all  they  can  to  withdraw  the  legal- tender  notes,  and  bring 
about  a  speedy  return  to  specie  payments,  and  that,  notwith- 
standing, we  are  a  debtor  country  to  an  amount  nearly  equal 
to  our  national  debt. 

He  can  assure  the  farmers  that,  as  soon  as  our  bank  paper 
is  payable  in  specie  on  demand,  there  will  be  some  four  or 
five  dollars  of  paper  afloat  for  every  silver  or  gold  dollar  in 
the  country. 

He  should  assure  the  farmers  that,  when  all  our  paper 
money  is  made  payable  in  specie  on  demand,  it  will  prove 


TARIFF.  351 

the  most  certain  means,  that  can  be  used  to  "  fertilize  the 
rich  man's  field  by  the  sweat  of  the  poor  man's  brow." 

It  will  do  this  by  ensuring  the  periodical  return  of  those 
scenes  of  panic,  pressure,  general  bankruptcy  and  ruin,  that 
have  so  often  changed  the  values  of  all  property  and  labor 
some  twenty-five  or  fifty  per  cent,  in  a  single  year,  whenever 
it  was  for  the  interest  of  foreign  creditors  or  merchants  at 
home  to  withdraw  a  few  extra  millions  from  our  banks,  as 
they  did  in  1857,  when  a  withdrawal  of  only  seven  millions 
produced  the  panic  of  that  year,  which  sunk  the  values  of 
all  the  property  of  our  country  to  the  amount  of  thousands 
of  millions  of  dollars.  These  millions  were  taken  from  the 
farmers,  mechanics  and  merchants,  who  were  in  debt,  and 
put  in  the  possession  of  those,  who  had  the  means  to  buy  at 
the  ruinous  rates,  at  which  property  of  all  kinds  was  com- 
pelled to  be  sold,  thus  making,  as  it  ever  must,  the  rich 
richer,  and  the  poor  poorer. 

Mr.  Brooks  should  sound  an  alarm  as  he  goes  through  the 
country,  and  say  to  all,  that  there  can  be  no  security  for  any 
man,  who  is  in  debt,  until  our  general  government  shall  per- 
form its  most  important  duty,  which  is,  not  only  to  establish 
a  just  system  of  money,  weights  and  measures,  but  a  system 
of  legal-tender  paper  money,  in  amount  equal  to  the  amount 
put  in  circulation  at  the  end  of  the  war  by  the  necessities  of 
the  government. 

Such  a  legal-tender  paper  money  would  be  a  bond  and 
mortgage  on  the  whole  property  of  the  country  and  a  bond 
of  union  among  the  states,  and  would  leave  gold  and  silver 
to  be  an  article  of  commerce  in  the  hands  of  those,  who 
hold  it. 

Mr.  Brooks  will  perform  a  most  valuable  service  to  the 
country,  if  he  will  tell  the  farmers,  that  Dr.  Franklin  says, 
that  the  American  people,  under  the  old  colonial  govern- 
ment, were  so  immoderately  fond  of  the  manufactures  and 
superfluities  of  foreign  countries  "  that  they  could  not  be 
restrained  from  purchasing  them,"  because  such  laws,  if 
made,  would  be  immediately  repealed  as  prejudicial  to  the 


352  TAEIFF. 

trade  and  interest  of  Great  Britain.  Dr.  Franklin  then 
adds  that  u  it  seems  hard,  therefore,  to  draw  all  their  real 
money  from  them,  and  then  refuse  them  the  privilege  of 
using  paper  instead  of  it." 

Mr.  Brooks  will  perform  a  most  valuable  service  to  the 
country  by  showing  the  farmers,  that  the  absenteeism, 
which  has  ruined  Ireland,  was  nothing  more  than  the  turn- 
ing of  a  hundred  small  farms  into  one  large  grazing  farm, 
that  can  be  managed  by  a  single  individual,  instead  of  mak- 
ing a  home  for  the  hundred  individual  farmers. 

He  should  show  the  farmers,  that  Ireland  has  been  im- 
poverished by  the  same  policy,  which  England  tried  to  force 
on  her  American  Colonies,  as  will  appear  by  the  following 
facts  of  British  legislation : 

"  In  1710,  a  law  was  enacted  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
which  declared  the  erecting  of  manufactories  in  the  Col- 
onies tended  to  lessen  their  dependence  on  Great  Britain. 

In  1782,  the  exportation  of  hats  from  province  to  prov- 
ince and  the  number  of  apprentices  were  limited. 

In  1750,  the  erection  of  any  mill  or  engine  for  slitting  or 
rolling  iron  was  prohibited. 

In  1765,  the  exportation  of  artisans  was  prohibited  under 
a  heavy  penalty. 

In  1781,  utensils  required  for  the  manufacture  of  wool  or 
silk  were  prohibited. 

In  1782,  the  prohibition  was  extended  to  artificers  in 
printing  calicoes,  muslins  or  linens. 

In  1785,  the  prohibition  was  extended  to  tools,  used  in 
iron  or  steel  manufacture,  and  to  workmen  employed. 

In  1799,  it  was  so  extended  as  to  even  embrace  colliers." 

All  classes  should  gather  wisdom  by  reflecting  on  the  his- 
tory and  the  experience  of  the  past. 

Free  trade  is  beautiful  in  theory,  and  will  be  in  practice, 
where  all  things  are  equal  and  peaceful  in  the  relations  of 
nations,  and  rapid  transit  shall  go  far  to  annihilate  space. 

Our  government,  having  allowed  and  used  paper  money, 
until  the  day's  labor  has  been  made  to  cost  at  least  one-third 


TARIFF.  353 

more  than  a  similar  day's  labor  would  cost  in  other  countries, 
to  bring  about  an  equality  in  trade  will  require  a  tariff, 
based  on  the  difference  in  the  cost,  that  will  purchase  a 
day's  labor  in  our  country,  as  compared  with  that  of  foreign 
countries. 

If  the  farmers  desire  to  secure  for  themselves  a  reliable 
market  and  the  highest  price  for  their  product,  they  must 
use  the  means  best  calculated  to  effect  that  object — they 
must  encourage  the  manufacture  of  the  articles  they  con- 
sume and  have  them  made  as  near  their  homes  as  possible. 
This  should  be  done  wherever  good  raw  materials  can  be 
found,  that  can  be  put  into  forms  of  usefulness  with  as 
small  expense  of  labor  in  this  country,  as  in  any  part  of 
the  world. 

If  I  am  not  mistaken  our  country  will  rise  out  of  its  great 
embarrassment  in  a  way,  that  would  astonish  the  world,  if 
our  Government  would  perform  what  was  and  is  its  first 
and  most  important  duty. 

The  Constitution  made  it  the  duty  of  Congress  to  adopt 
measures  that  will  "  establish  justice ; "  that  is  the  only 
means  by  which  the  "  common  welfare  can  be  promoted." 

To  establish  justice  for  a  nation  there  must  be  created  and 
maintained  a  just  and  uniform  system  of  money,  weights 
and  measures. 

It  is  of  the  greatest  importance,  that  all  the  paper  money, 
allowed  by  the  government,  should  be  made  as  unyielding 
in  its  power  to  pay  debts  as  the  yard-stick  or  the  pound- 
weight. 

Our  government,  having  been  literally  compelled  to  issue 
and  use  a  legal-tender  paper  money,  in  order  to  save  the 
nation's  life,  has,  by  its  use,  caused  the  whole  property  of 
the  country  to  be  measured  by  its  purchasing  power.  By 
this  use  of  paper  money  the  government  has  created  a  most 
solemn  obligation  on  its  part  to  do  no  act  to  increase  or  di- 
minish the  amount  of  paper  money  beyond  the  absolute 
necessities  of  the  government.  As  an  increase  of  the 
amount  would  inflate  prices,  without  increasing  real  values, 
23 


354  TAEIFF. 

in  the  same  proportion  a  diminution  of  currency  must  cause 
all  property  to  shrink  in  price,  and  thereby  put  it  out  of  the 
power  of  the  people  to  pay  the  national  debt. 

One  thing  is  certain,  that  the  national  debt  can  never 
be  paid  by  a  governmental  policy,  that  shrinks  the  cur- 
rency, destroys  values,  paralyzes  industry,  enforces  idleness 
and  brings  wretchedness  and  ruin  to  the  homes  of  millions 
of  the  American  people.  It  is  equally  true,  that  Americans 
can  never  buy  anything  cheap  from  foreign  countries,  that 
must  be  bought  at  the  expense  of  leaving  our  own  good  raw 
materials  unused,  and  our  own  labor  unemployed.  It 
should  be  remembered,  that  neither  gold,  silver,  copper, 
nickel  nor  paper  are  money,  without  the  stamp  of  the  gov- 
ernment upon  it.  The  Constitution  has  made  it  the  duty 
of  Congress  to  coin  the  money  of  our  country  and  regulate 
the  value  thereof,  and  fix  a  standard  of  weights  and  mea- 
sures, as  the  only  possible  means,  by  which  commerce  can 
be  regulated  between  foreign  nations  and  among  the  several 
States. 

PETER  COOPER. 


ADDRESS  AT  A  DINNER,  GIVEN  AT  DELMONICO'S,  BY  THE  COM- 
MISSION MERCHANTS  OF  NEW  YORK  TO  THE  MANUFAC- 
TURERS OF  MASSACHUSETTS,  DECEMBER  14,  1870. 

MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  GENTLEMEN  : 

I  have  indulged  the  hope,  that  the  day  will  come,  when 
all  festive  occasions,  like  the  present,  will  be  made  feasts  of. 
reason  as  well  as  feasts  of  the  good  things,  provided  by 
Nature  for  our  use. 

In  my  attempt  to  reply  to  the  toast,  in  honor  of  the  City 
of  New  York,  I  would  gladly,  if  I  could,  say  something  that 
might  be  remembered  with  profit. 

"When,  my  friends,  I  turn  my  thoughts  in  review  of  the 
rise  and  progress  of  this,  my  beloved  native  city — the  city, 
where  both  my  mother  and  grandmother  were  born — when 
I  call  to  mind  its  rapid  growth  in  population,  wealth  and 


TARIFF.  355 

power,  it  seems  almost  like  a  vision,  that  has  passed ;  for  at 
the  time  of  my  birth  there  were  only  about  forty  thousand 
inhabitants  on  this  island. 

When  the  rnind  wanders  over  the  vast  extent  of  the  coun- 
try, that  now  pours  its  treasures  into  our  city — when  we  con- 
template the  untold  millions,  that  will  soon  occupy  its  vast 
extent,  with  all  our  lakes,  mountains,  rivers  and  noble  har- 
bors, with  all  the  floating  palaces,  that  bring  to  our  favored 
cities  the  choicest  fruits  of  every  clime — and  when  I  look  on 
the  fiery  steeds,  that  rend  the  air  and  cause  the  very  earth 
to  tremble  beneath  our  feet,  while  they  fly  through  space  as 
on  the  wings  of  the  wind — in  view  of  all  this,  when  I  recol- 
lect, that  it  fell  to  my  lot  to  put  on  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio 
Railroad  the  first  American  built  locomotive-engine,  that 
carried  passengers  in  this  country,  the  recollection  of  all 
this,  with  the  power  we  now  have  to  send  our  messages 
through  the  world  with  lightning-speed,  all  seems  like  a 
dream.  These  are  but  items  of  what  science  has  done  and 
will  do  for  the  world,  when  mankind  become  wise  enough 
to  beat  their  swords  into  plowshares,  and  their  spears  into 
pruning  hooks.  This  they  will  only  do,  when  knowledge  shall 
cover  the  earth,  as  the  waters  cover  the  great  deep.  Until 
that  time  shall  arrive,  we  must  remember,  that  the  price  of 
our  liberty  and  independence  is  perpetual  vigilance ;  for,  as 
the  poet  says  that  "  Life  is  war,  eternal  war  with  woe — and 
he  that  bears  it  best,  deserves  it  least." 

I  trust,  my  friends,  that  the  time  will  come,  when  it  will 
be  the  pride  and  the  glory  of  every  American  citizen  to 
give  the  world  an  equivalent,  in  some  form  of  useful  labor, 
for  all  he  consumes  in  life. 

There  is  nothing,  my  friends,  more  important  for  us,  as 
individuals,  or  as  a  community,  State  or  Nation,  than  to 
gather  wisdom  from  the  history  and  experience  of  the  past. 

The  Fathers  of  our  country  had  gathered  from  the  past 
an  amount  of  wisdom,  that  enabled  them  to  form  for  us  a 
Constitution,  which  was  intended  to  embody,  in  the  forms 
of  law,  the  highest  wisdom,  virtue  and  intelligence  of  a 


356  TARIFF. 

whole  people.  They  intended  to  make  that  virtue  and  in- 
telligence a  shield  to  protect  the  lives  and  property  of  all. 
They  intended,  that  our  Government  should  be  of  the  people 
and  for  the  people,  and  become  a  tower  of  strength,  on 
which  we  might  rely  with  safety,  for  all  that  can  make  a 
nation  rich,  prosperous  and  happy. 

The  advocates  of  free  trade  with  foreign  countries  are 
trying  to  persuade  our  Government  and  people,  that  it  is  for 
our  interest  to  buy  from  other  nations  all  the  luxuries  and 
superfluities  they  have  to  offer.  These  advocates  of  free 
trade  propose,  that  our  own  mechanics  shall  either  work  at 
the  starvation-prices  of  foreign  labor,  or  be  forced  to  aban- 
don their  trades  and  become  competitors  with  the  agricul- 
tural interests  of  the  country. 

If  we  desire  to  bring  upon  our  whole  nation  a  fate  similar 
to  that,  which  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  Ireland,  India,  Tur- 
key, Mexico  and  Hindoostan,  it  is  only  necessary  to  arrange 
our  tariff  in  a  way,  that  will  induce  the  people  throughout 
the  States  to  have  all  their  manufacturing  done  in  foreign 
countries,  and  pay  for  it,  with  the  raw  materials  qf  our  own. 

Such  a  policy  will,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  secure  for  our 
Union  of  States  as  rapid  a  decline  and  fall  as  those  of 
Spain,  when  she  drove  the  Moors,  her  principal  manufac- 
turers, out  of  her  country. 

Such  a  policy  might  gratify  our  national  thirst  after  all  the 
dear-bought  follies  and  fashions  of  European  life;  but  it 
would  bring  ruin  and  wretchedness  upon  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  the  mechanics  of  our  country,  who  have  nothing  to 
sell  but  their  labor.  To  break  up  the  diversified  employ- 
ments of  this  vast  number,  by  a  change  of  tariff,  and  then, 
expect  them  to  find  for  themselves  other  means  of  living,  is 
about  as  reasonable  as  it  was  for  Pharaoh  to  expect  his 
people  to  make  bricks  without  straw.  "What  the  mechanics 
of  our  country  have  a  right  to  ask  of  the  Government  is,  that 
such  an  adjustment  of  the  tariff  should  be  made,  as  will  se- 
cure the  payment  of  the  national  debt  and  the  expenses  of 
the  Government,  from  duties  on  imports,  within  a  reason- 


TAKIFF.  357 

able  time.  The  duties  should  all  be  raised  from  the  small- 
est number  of  articles,  that  would  yield  the  required  amount. 
The  raising  of  duties  should  be  made  to  encourage  the  manu- 
facture of  those  articles,  that  are  the  most  indispensable  to 
the  welfare  of  the  nation  in  time  of  war. 

It  is  fortunate  for  our  country,  that  we  are  enabled  to 
produce  cotton  and  corn,  with  less  labor  than  the  same  can 
be  produced  in  any  other  part  of  the  world. 

With  the  surplus  of  these  important  articles  for  export, 
together  with  the  gold  and  the  agricultural  and  manufactu- 
ring products  of  the  country,  we  shall  be  able  to  maintain 
an  extended  and  profitable  commerce  with  foreign  countries, 
without  reducing  the  price  of  labor,  to  the  level  that  is  now 
being  paid  for  similar  labor  in  foreign  countries. 

For  our  Government  and  people,  to  take  the  advice  of 
the  advocates  of  free  trade,  would  be,  about  as  wise,  as  for  a 
nation  at  war  with  another,  to  control  and  regulate  their 
action,  by  the  advice  of  their  enemies.  It  is  terrible  to  con- 
template the  ruin,  that  can  be  brought  on  a  country  by  fol- 
lowing the  advice  of  men  or  Governments,  that  have  a  direct 
interest  to  mislead  and  deceive  us. 

There  is  nothing,  my  friends,  but  a  diversified  and  well- 
directed  labor,  that  can  secure  national  wealth  and  general 
prosperity. 

We  must  remember,  that  it  is  impossible  to  obtain  any- 
thing cheap  from  foreign  countries,  that  must  be  bought  at 
the  expense  of  leaving  our  own  labor  unemployed,  and  our 
own  good  raw  materials  unused. 

In  conclusion,  it  gives  me  pleasure  to  state,  for  one,  that 
I  see  reason  to  hope,  for  a  wise  and  economical  Government 
over  our  city.  That  hope  was  inspired  by  the  fact,  that  our 
"  Citizens'  Association "  had  obtained  from  the  Supreme 
Court  an  order  to  take  possession  of  the  Street  Commis- 
sioner's books,  which  showed  such  a  revelation  of  fraud,  that 
he  left  his  office  at  once. 

This  hope  is  founded  on  the  laws,  that  were  obtained,  by 
an  almost  unanimous  vote  of  the  last  Legislature  of  our 


358  TARIFF. 

State.  By  these  laws,  we  have  secured  responsible  heads 
and  a  degree  of  stability  in  all  the  different  departments  of 
the  government  of  our  city. 

As  another  ground  of  hope  I  would  state,  as  President  of 
the  Citizens'  Association,  that  we  have  received  the  strong- 
est form  of  assurance  from  the  principal  men,  now  in  the 
most  prominent  departments  of  the  Government,  that  it  is 
their  intention  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  secure  for  our 
city  an  honest  and  economical  Government 

We  have  another  ground  of  hope  for  the  future  growth 
and  prosperity  of  our  city  and  State,  growing  out  of  the 
legislation  of  the  last  winter.  It  will  be  remembered,  that 
a  large  body  of  men  formed  themselves  into  what  is  known 
as  a  Commercial  Union.  They  petitioned  the  Legislature 
for  lower  tolls,  and  for  a  reform  in  the  management  of  the 
canals.  They  were  men,  who  saw  and  felt  the  great  impor- 
tance of  bringing  back  to  our  State  and  city  a  commerce, 
that  was  being  rapidly  lost  by  the  high  tolls  and  bad 
management  of  the  Erie  Canal — a  canal,  that  has  more 
than  doubled  the  value  of  the  city  of  New- York,  and  has, 
from  its  tolls,  paid  $15,000,000  into  the  treasury  of  the 
State,  after  having  paid,  in  addition,  all  its  cost,  and  the 
expenses  of  running  it. 

Under  the  laws,  passed  last  winter,  the  Atolls  have  been 
reduced  some  fifty  per  cent.,  besides  having  removed  the 
temptation  of  contractors  to  make  profitable  jobs  out  of 
the  breaks,  that  so  frequently  took  place  on  the  line  of 
the  canal. 

It  is  now  rendered  certain,  that  transportation  on  the  Erie 
Canal,  can  be  doubled,  without  enlargement,  and  that  the 
price  of  freight  can  be  reduced  by  the  introduction  of  steam 
for  towing  the  boats,  without  any  injury  to  the  banks  of  the 
canal.  The  experiment  has  been  fairly  tried  by  an  or- 
dinary full-sized  boat,  to  which  steam  was  applied.  The 
boat  passed  from  New  York  to  Albany  by  its  own  power, 
and  through  forty  locks  on  the  canal,  towing  another  boat  a 
part  of  the  way,  and  burning  only  one  ton  of  coal  in  twenty- 


TAEIFF.  359 

four  hours,  showing  a  power  of  sixteen  horses  for  twenty- 
four  hours,  at  a  cost  of  five  dollars,  when  coal  can  be  had  at 
five  dollars  the  ton. 

The  report  of  the  experiment  shows,  "  that  a  loaded  boat 
can  be  towed  seventy-two  miles,  at  a  cost  of  five  dollars, 
when  the  towing  of  boats  with  horses  cost  forty  cents  per 
mile  for  each  boat  this  season,  or  $28.80  for  seventy-two 
miles." 

With  such  advantages  of  cheap  and  rapid  transportation 
for  the  heavy  products  of  the  West,  what  may  we  not  hope 
for  and  expect,  when  our  new  system  of  wharves,  now  being 
devised  by  our  excellent  dock  commissioners,  Wilson  G. 
Hunt  at  its  head,  shall  invite  to  our  city  the  commerce  of 
the  world  ? 


PROTECTION  TO  AMERICAN  INDUSTRY  AGAINST  COMMERCIAL 

WAR. 

NEW  YORK,  October  7,  1871. 

SIR — The  experience  of  nearly  81  years  has  taught  me, 
that  the  greatest  and  most  important  question,  that  now 
demands  the  consideration  of  the  American  people  is, 
whether  we,  as  a  nation,  are  willing  to  know  the  truth  and 
let  the  truth  make  and  maintain  our  freedom,  or  whether 
we  have  deliberately  determined  to  follow  the  advice  of 
men  and  nations,  who  have  a  direct  and  an  immediate  in- 
terest to  mislead  and  deceive  us.  For  we  may  rest  assured, 
that  all  trade,  between  foreign  nations  and  our  own,  is  a 
kind  of  Commercial  War.  It  is  a  war  of  interests,  as  all 
nations  are  using  their  highest  arts  to  buy  as  cheap  and  sell 
as  dear  as  they  can.  All  are  trying  to  buy  their  raw  ma- 
terials in  the  cheapest  market,  and  to  sell  their  manufac- 
tured labor  for  the  most,  that  can  be  obtained  for  it.  This 
they  are  doing  by  the  use  of  all  the  arts,  both  fair  and  foul, 
that  human  ingenuity  can  devise. 

It  can  be  shown,  that  the  wars  of  commercial  interests 
are  more  insidious  and  more  to  be  dreaded,  than  wars  of 


360  TAEIFF. 

conquest.  There  is  nothing  in  all  history,  that  admits  of 
more  complete  demonstration  than  the  fact,  that  the  wars 
of  commercial  interests,  carried  on  by  England  alone,  have 
led  to,  and  caused  a  greater  destruction  of  life  and  prop- 
erty, during  the  last  70  years,  than  has  been  occasioned  by 
all  the  wars  of  conquest,  that  have  taken  place  in  the  civil- 
ized world  during  that  period  of  time.  It  is  now  less  than 
75  years  since  a  company,  chartered  by  Great  Britain, 
commenced  a  mercantile  war  on  the  people  of  Hindostan, 
a  country  with  its  then  150,000,000  of  inhabitants,  famed 
for  manufacturing  the  finest  quality  of  goods,  and  for 
being  in  possession  of  the  riches  of  the  East.  History  tells 
us,  that  "  in  no  part  of  the  world  has  there  been  seen  a  greater 
tendency  to  voluntary  association  for  a  mutual  exchange 
of  labor  than  once  existed  in  Hindostan.  .  .  .  Each 
village  had  its  distinct  organization,  under  which  the  na- 
tives had  lived  from  the  earliest  times  down  to  a  recent 
date.  .  .  .  Revolutions  might  occur,  and  dynasties 
might  succeed  each  other ;  but,  so  k>ng  as  his  own  little 
society  was  undisturbed,  the  simple  Hindoo  gave  himself 
no  concern  about  what  might  happen  at  the  capital. 
Though  often  over-taxed  and  plundered  by  invading  ar- 
mies, the  country  continued  both  rich  and  prosperous," 
until  an  East  India  Company,  chartered  and  sustained  by 
the  power  of  Great  Britain,  commenced  a  war  of  encroach- 
ments on  the  trade  and  commerce  of  that  country.  This 
war  of  commercial  interests  led  to  a  war  of  conquest, 
which,  after  the  battle  of  Plassey,  had  established  British 
power  in  India.  "  The  country  became  filled  with  adven- 
turers ;  men  whose  sole  object  was  to  accumulate  fortunes, 
by  any  means,  however  foul,"  as  was  shown  by  the  indig- 
nant denunciation  of  Burke  in  the '  Parliament  of  Great 
Britain.  Fox  declared,  in  a  speech  on  the  East  India  bill, 
that  "  the  country  was  laid  waste  with  fire  and  sword,  and 
the  land  once  distinguished  most  above  others  by  the  cheer- 
ful face  of  fraternal  government  and  protected  labor,  the 
chosen  seat  of  cultivation  and  plenty,  is  now  almost  a 


TARIFF.  361 

dreary  desert,  covered  with  rushes  and  briars,  jungles  and 
wild  beasts."     .     .     . 

Macaulay  says,  "  The  misgovernment  was  carried  to  such 
an  extent,  as  seemed  hardly  compatible  with  the  existence 
of  society.  They  forced  the  natives  to  buy  dear  and  sell 
cheap."  They  insulted,  with  impunity,  the  tribunals,  the 
police  and  the  fiscal  authorities  of  the  country.  Enormous 
fortunes  were  thus  rapidly  accumulated  at  Calcutta,  where 
30,000,000  of- human  beings  were  reduced  to  the  extremity 
of  wretchedness.  They  had  been  accustomed  to  live  under 
tyranny;  but  never  tyranny  like  this.  Under  their  old 
masters,  they  had  one  resource — when  the  evil  became  in- 
supportable, the  people  pulled  down  the  Government. 
Eut  the  English  Government  was  not  to  be  shaken  off. 
That  Government,  oppressive  as  the  most  oppressive  form 
of  barbarian  despotism,  was  strong  with  all  the  strength  of 
civilization.  It  resembled  the  government  of  evil  genii 
rather  than  the  government  of  human  tyrants.  .  .  . 
Under  the  title  of  .Zamindas.  a  landed  aristocracy  was 
created  and  held  accountable  for  the  collection  of  the  taxes. 
Fullerton,  a  member  of  the  Madras  Council,  says:  "Im- 
agine the  revenue  leviable  through  the  agency  of  100,000 
revenue  officers ;  collected  or  remitted  at  their  discretion, 
according  to  the  occupant's  means  of  paying,  whether  from 
produce  of  the  land  or  his  separate  property ;  and,  in  order 
to  encourage  every  man  to  act  as  a  spy  on  his  neighbor 
and  report  his  means  of  paying,  that  he  may  save  himself 
from  all  extra  demand,  imagine  all  the  cultivators  of  a  vil- 
lage liable  at  all  times  to  a  separate  demand,  in  order  to 
make  up  the  failure  of  one  or  more  individuals  of  the  par- 
ish. Imagine  collectors  to  every  county,  acting  under  the 
orders  of  a  Board,  on  the  avowed  principle  of  destroying 
all  competition  for  labor  by  a  general  equalization  of  as- 
sessments, seizing  and  sending  back  all  runaways  to  each 
other.  Lastly,  imagine  the  collector,  the  sole  magistrate  or 
Justice  of  the  Peace  of  the  county;  through  the  medium 
of  whom  alone,  complaint  of  personal  grievance,  suffered 


862  TAKIFF. 

by  the  subject,  can  reach  the  Superior  Court.  Imagine  at 
the  same  time  every  subordinate  officer,  employed  in  the 
collection  of  the  land-revenue  to  be  a  police  officer,  vested 
with  the  power  to  confine,  put  in  the  stocks  and  flay  any 
inhabitant  within  his  range,  on  any  charge,  without  oath  of 
the  accuser  or  sworn  recorded  evidence  in  the  case."  .  .  . 
Under  this  state  of  things,  "  the  works  constructed  for  irri- 
gation have  gone  to  ruin,  and  the  richest  lands  have  been 
abandoned." 

Capt.  Westmacot  tells  his  readers,  that  in  places  the 
longest  under  British  rule,  there  is  the  largest  amount  of 
depravity  and  crime.  Campbell,  one  of  the  most  distin- 
guished of  British  poets,  characterizes  the  course  of  their 
policy  in  India  prophetically  when  he  says : 

"  Foes  of  mankind,  her  guardian  spirits  say, 
Revolving  ages  bring  the  bitter  day, 
When  heaven's  unerring  aim  shall  fall  on  you, 
And  blood  for  blood  these  Indian  plains  bedew." 

"  The  immolations  of  an  Indian  Juggernaut,"  says  a  recent 
writer,  "  dwindle  into  insignificance  before  it,  and  yet  .to 
maintain  this  trade  the  towns  and  cities  have  been  laid  in 
ruins."  The  middleman  system  of  Ireland  and  of  the 
"West  Indies  was  transplanted  to  those  countries  of  the 
East,  to  wliich  Macaulay  declares,  that  "  the  English  Gov- 
ernment became  as  oppressive  as  the  most  oppressive  form 
of  barbarian  despotism."  The  poor  Hindoo  was  not  al- 
lowed to  make  salt  from  the  waters  of  the  ocean.  Every 
form  of  tax  and  exaction  was  forced  on  that  people,  in  or- 
der to  drive  them  to  send  all  their  cotton  and  wool  to  Eng- 
land (tiic  ^  ^~  >rkshop  of  the  world)  to  be  converted  and 
returned.  Sir  Robert  Peel  says :  "  The  effects  in  India  ex- 
hibit themselves  in  such  a  ruin  and  distress,  that  no  paral- 
lel can  be  found  in  the  annals  of  commerce"  The  great 
city  of  Decca,  that  only  TO  years  since  contained  90,000 
houses,  "and  exported  millions  of  pieces  of  the  finest  qual- 
ity of  goods,  is  now  a  mass  of  ruins."  The  same  authority 


TAEIFF. 

says:  "For  the  accomplishment  of  this  work  of  destruc- 
tion, the  children  of  Lancashire,  England,  were  employed 
15  to  17  hours  per  day  during  the  week,  and  until  12 
o'clock  on  Sunday,  cleaning  and  oiling  machinery,  for 
which  they  received  two  shillings  and  nine  pence  per 
week.  The  object  was  to  underwork  the  poor  Hindoo,  and 
drive  him  from  the  markets  of  the  world."  The  pound  of 
cotton,  costing  in  India  one  cent,  was  passed  through  Brit- 
ish looms,  and  sold  to  the  Hindoo  for  from  40  to  60 
cents.  "Thus  England  was  enriched,  as  India  became 
impoverished.  Step  by  step,  British  power  was  extended, 
and  everywhere  was  adopted  the  Hindoo  principle,  that  the 
sovereign,  as  proprietor  of  the  soil,  was  entitled  to  half 
the  gross  produce"  While  these  exorbitant  local  taxes 
were  expended  among  its  own  people,  the  burden  could 
be  borne ;  when  these  taxes  were  drawn  from  the  people 
and  expended  on  absentee  landlords,  the  burden  brought 
desolation  and  premature  death  to  millions  of  the  peo- 
ple of  that  country.  History  tells  us,  that  one-half  of  the 
labor  of  that  people  ran  to  waste  for  the  want  of  employ- 
ment. 

The  exactions  of  British  power  in  China,  made  to  force 
the  sale  of  opium  in  that  country,  are  stated  to  cause  the 
death  annually  of  500,000  of  the  Chinese  people,  besides  a 
tax  of  nearly  $20,000,000.  The  ruin  of  Portugal  was  ef- 
fected by  the  Government's  having  been  induced  to  adopt 
a  British  commercial  policy,  which  broke  up  the  harmony 
of  the  agricultural  and  mechanical  interests— interests,  that 
had  for  so  long  a  time  made  Portugal  rich  and  prosperous. 
"  It  is  less  than  200  years  since  the  merchants  of  London 
petitioned  their  Government  to  restrain.  j<idwe 

of  doth  in  Ireland?  Of  all  the  1,700,000  slaves,  imported 
into  the  British  West  India  Islands,  only  660,000  were 
found  living  on  the  day  of  emancipation.  This  was  the  re- 
sult of  a  war  of  commerce.  The  planters  on  those  islands 
had  been  deprived  by  law  of  all  right  "  to  refine  their  own 
sugar,  or  to  introduce  a  spindle  or  a  loom,  or  to  mine  coal, 


364  TARIFF. 

or  to  smelt  their  own  copper,"  thus  depriving  the  people  of. 
the  islands  of  all  power  of  association,  and  exchange  of  la- 
bor, and  harmony  of  interests,  without  which  ruin  falls  to 
the  lot  of  every  community.  The  British  policy,  that  was 
forced  on  the  Island  of  Jamaica  alone,  cost  the  lives  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  men,  in  order  that  a  few  absentee 
owners  might  live  in  splendor  on  the  Isle  of  Britain.  The 
policy  of  forcing  the  whole  labor  of  a  community  into  the 
single  pursuit  of  making  sugar  effectually  prevented  the 
growth  of  towns  and  schools,  and  impoverished  the  people 
and  the  land.  All  communities  require  the  families  of  the 
blacksmith,  the  carpenter,  mason,  and  of  other  tradesmen, 
to  consume  a  large  part  of  the  agricultural  product  of  the 
soil,  to  secure  them  prosperity  and  to  enable  them  to  leave 
offal  to  enrich  the  land  that  feeds  them.  "  On  the  Island 
of  Jamaica,  with  a  population  of  320,000  black  laborers, 
and  with  inexhaustible  supplies  of  timber,  that  island  has 
been  without  a  single  saw-mill  up  to  1860."  Out  of  the 
amount  paid  to  the  British  Government  by  the  people 
thirty  years  since  for  the  products  of  its  320,000  black  la- 
borers, the  Home  Government  took  no  less  than  $18,000,000, 
or  almost  $60  per  head,  and  this  merely  for  superintending 
the  exchanges.  The  negroes,  imported  into  Jamaica  were 
no  more  barbarian  than  those,  brought  to  Virginia  and 
North  Carolina ;  yet,  while  each  of  the.  negroes,  imported 
into  the  latter  States  is  represented  by  seven  of  his  de- 
scendants, the  British  Islands  present  but  two  for  every  five 
they  have  received.  Bufe  a  century  since,  Portugal  and  the 
West  Indies  were  England's  best  customers.  What  are 
they  now  ?  All  impoverished  by  a  policy,  that  has  broken 
up  their  own  home  commerce,  and  has  subjected  their 
countries  to  the  heaviest  kind  of  tax — the  tax  of  transport- 
ing their  heavy  products  to  great  distances,  to  be  exchanged 
for  the  light  products  of  other  countries. 

The  first  attempt  at  manufacture  in  the  American  Colo- 
nies was  followed  by  interference  on  the  part  of  the  British 
Legislature.  .  .  .  "In  1710,  the  House  of  Commons  de- 


TAEIFF.  365 

clared,  that  the  erecting  manufactories  in  the  Colonies 
tended  to  lessen  their  dependence  on  Great  Britain.  .  .  . 
In  1732,  the  exportation  of  hats  from  province  to  province, 
and  the  number  of  apprentices  were  limited.  .  '  .  .  In 
1750,  the  erection  of  any  mill  or  engine  for  slitting  or  roll- 
ing iron  was  prohibited.  ...  In  1765,  the  exporta- 
tion of  artisans  from  Great  Britain  was  prohibited,  under  a 
heavy  penalty.  ...  In  1781,  utensils,  required  for  the 
manufacture  of  wool  or  silk  were  prohibited.  .  .  .  In 
1782,  the  prohibition  was  extended  to  artificers  in  printing 
calicoes,  muslins,  or  linens,  or  in  making  implements,  used 
in  their  manufacture.  ...  In  1785,  the  prohibition 
was  extended  to  tools,  used  in  iron  and  steel  manufacture, 
and  to  workmen  so  employed.  .  .  .  In  1799,  it  was  so 
extended  as  to  embrace  even  colliers." 

The  war  of  the  Revolution  of  our  own  country  was 
brought  on  by  a  war  of  commercial  interests.  It  was  a 
war,  that  showed  a  determination  on  the  part  of  the  mother 
country  to  keep  her  Colonies  entirely  dependent  on  Eng- 
land for  all  forms  of  manufactured  articles.  Laws  were 
enacted  to  prevent  the  Colonies  from  manufacturing  out  of 
their  own  good  raw  materials  things,  indispensable  for  their 
own  use,  and  necessary  to  give  employment  to  those,  who 
have  nothing  to  sell  but  their  own  labor.  The  war  of  the 
Revolution  was  a  war  of  resistance  to  a  war  of  commerce, 
then  being  forced  by  the  mother  country  on  the  Colonies. 
Our  conquest  of  a  country  did  not  deliver  us  from  the  con- 
summate power  of  highly  educated  British  diplomats,  whose 
business  it  has  always  been  to  find  the  weak  places  in  sur- 
rounding governments,  and  to  so  control  the  legislation  of 
those  countries  as  to  make  them  tributary  to  the  wealth  and 
power  of  Great  Britain.  These  diplomats,  after  having  se- 
cured for  their  own  manufacturing  interests  more  perfect 
protection  and  more  perfect  mechanical  powers,  than  any 
other  nation  possessed,  have  enabled  their  Government  to 
gain  greater  advantages  by  their  war  of  commerce  on  our 
own  country,  than  they  could  have  gained,  if  the  Colonies  • 


366  TAKIFF. 

had  remained  entirely  under  their  own  control.  Such  has 
been  the  consummate  ability,  that  foreign  diplomacy  has 
been  able  to  exert  in  a  war  of  commerce,  which  has  brought 
our  country  in  debt  to  foreign  Governments  to  an  amount 
the  interest  on  which  is  now  equivalent  to  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  agricultural  export  of  the  country.  This  state  of 
things  must  continue  or  grow  worse,  unless  our  Govern- 
ment will  raise  its  whole  revenue  out  of  duties  on  imports, 
and  relieve  the  country  from  all  forms  of  direct  taxation, 
and  by  that  means  encourage  the  application  of  knowledge, 
economy  and  labor,  in  a  course  of  efforts  to  supply  our  own 
wants  by  our  own  industry,  out  of  our  own  good  raw  ma- 
terials, that  can  be  put  into  useful  forms  with  as  small  an 
expense  of  human  labor  here,  as  in  any  other  part  of  the 
world.  Thus  it  will  enable  the  country  to  win  back  its  in- 
dependence of  foreign  debt,  by  paying  it  off  as  fast  as  the 
amount  can  be  raised  from  the  duties  on  imports. 

Our  Government  can  only  hold  its  power  as  a  free  system 
by  avoiding  in  future  all  special,  partial,  or  class  legislation, 
and  by  the  enactment  of  only  such  general  laws,  as  are  ne- 
cessary and  indispensable  to  establish  justice.  Justice 
can  only  be  established  "and  the  general  welfare  pro- 
moted" by  the  Government's  holding  entire  control  over 
all,  that  is  allowed  or  intended  to  measure  or  weigh  the 
different  forms  and  values  of  labor  in  its  course  of  exchange 
from  one  person  to  another.  Hence  the  absolute  necessity 
for  the  establishment  of  a  just  and  unyielding  system  of 
money.  This  is  indispensable  to  facilitate  the  business  of 
the  country.  If  paper  is  to  be  coined  into  money,  the 
amount  should  be  limited  and  so  regulated,  that  the  sum 
could  only  be  increased  in  regular  proportion  with  the  natu- 
ral increase  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  country.  All  Govern- 
ment paper  should  be  a  legal  tender  in  the  payment  of  all 
private  debts,  which  were  contracted  during  the  time,  that 
paper  is  allowed  to  circulate  as  money.  All  persons  should 
have  the  privilege  of  paying  duties  on  imports,  and  also  all 
'contracts  to  pay  gold,  by  adding  to  the  amount  in  legal  ten- 


TAEIFF.  3(57 

ders  a  sum  sufficient  to  be  equal  to  the  average  premium, 
that  gold  had  sold  for  during  the  month  preceding  the  ma- 
turing of  the  contract— the  Government  to  advertise  the 
rate  of  premium  on  the  1st  of  every  month. 

The  people  of  our  country  should  never  forget,  that  one 
of  the  great  causes  which  led  to  the  American  Kevolution, 
was  the  determination  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain  to  force 
its  manufactures  on  the  Colonies,  to  be  paid  for  by  sending 
raw  materials  to  England ;  thus  keeping  them  dependent 
by  preventing  them  from  manufacturing  for  themselves. 
This  policy  of  England  has  drawn  to  its  little  island  the 
wealth  of  every  country,  that  has  allowed  itself  to  become 
the  subject  of  its  policy  and  power.     It  is  still  trying  to 
persuade  the  people  of  this  country  to  run  their  plows  in 
competition  with  the  mighty  machines  in  England,  where 
a  single  engine  is  doing  the  work  of  a  thousand  horses.    To 
see  the  folly  of  yielding  to  a  British  policy,  we  have  only  to 
look  at  the  effects,  produced  on  our  country  during  the  war 
with  England.     At  that  time,  when  our  foreign  trade  was 
cut  off,  labor  was  in  demand  and  money  abundant,  furnaces 
and  mills  were  built  and  all  actively  employed ;  wages  were 
high  and  our  national  debt  small.     Four  years  later,  our 
country  was  persuaded  to  yield  to  a  British  policy  of  Free 
Trade.    At  once  all  was  changed  ;  mills  and  furnaces  were 
stopped,  labor  went  begging,  our  poorhouses  were  filled,  the 
prices  of  land  declined,  money  became  scarce,  and  interest 
high ;  the  rich,  who  held  mortgages,  became  richer,  and  the 
poor  and  those  who  were  in  debt,  were  ruined.     At  that 
time,  the  American  farmer  had  no  foreign  or  home  market 
for  the  surplus  product  of  the  country.     Complaints  grew 
and  increased,  until  things  grew  so  bad,  that  in  1S28,  our 
Government  found  it  necessary  to  adopt  what  I  call  a  true 
American  system — a  system  of  Free  Trade — a  trade,  that 
extended  to  all  parts  of  our  own  country  in  all  articles,  that 
are  the  product  of  our  own  soil  or  of  American  labor.     By 
this  system,  duties  were  laid  on  imports,  which  soon  gave 
new  life  and  energy  to  the  trade  and  business*  of  the  coun- 


368  TAKIFF. 

try.  The  public  debt  was  soon  paid  off  and  prosperity 
became  universal. 

By  degrees,  between  1834  and  1842,  the  tariff  was  again 
repealed.  The  mills  were  again  stopped,  furnaces  closed, 
lands  fell  to  half-price,  the  sheriff  at  work,  States  repudia- 
ting their  debts,  the  Treasury  unable  to  borrow  at  home  or 
abroad,  and  bankrupt  laws  were  passed  by  Congress.  In 
1842,  the  true  American  system  was  again  tried ;  and  in 
less  than  live  years  the  production  of  iron  alone  rose  from 
200,000  tons  to  800,000  tons.  Prosperity  was  again  univer- 
sal ;  mines  were  opened,  mills  were  built,  money  plenty  and 
the  public  and  private  revenues  greater  than  ever.  Once 
more,  in  1846,  the  British  policy  of  Free  Trade  was  adopted 
by  repealing  our  tariff,  and,  notwithstanding  the  discovery 
of  gold  in  California,  money  was  as  high  as  ever,  British 
iron  came  in  and  gold  went  out.  In  1857,  the  culmination 
was  reached  and  a  crisis  came  on.  The  Treasury  was 
again  nearly  bankrupt.  In  three  years,  emigration  fell  be- 
low the  point  of  twenty-eight  years  before,  and  our  own 
exports  fell  off  to  a  mere  nothing.  Such  have  been  the  ef- 
fects of  yielding  to  a  policy  recommended  by  men  and 
nations,  having  interests  to  serve,  that  are  at  war  with  all 
the  best  interests  of  our  own  country. 

A  war  of  commercial  interests  is  not  peculiar  to  England 
alone.  It  has  been  the  habit  of  all  trading  nations  since 
"  naught  said  the  buyer."  They  will  all  continue  to  buy 
in  the  cheapest  market  and  sell  in  the  dearest,  as  long  as 
men  do  not  love  their  neighbors  as  they  do  themselves. 
There  are  thousands  of  those,  now  engaged  in  foreign  trade, 
whose  fortunes  depend  on  filling  the  country  with  foreign 
goods.  There  are  other  thousands,  holders  of  mortgages, 
who  hope  to  buy  in  the  property  for  the  face  of  their  mort- 
gages, or  for  half  its  present  value.  And  that  they  will  do, 
as  soon  as  they  can  induce  our  Government  to  try  another 
experiment,  in  what  they  call  free  trade.  The  policy  of 
these  persons,  who  are  all  clamorous  for  free  trade,  would 
deprive  millions  of  men  of  their  means  of  living  by  median- 


TAEIFF. 

ical  employments,  and  drive  them  into  competition  with 
the  farming  and  agricultural  interests  of  the  country,  mak- 
ing the  mechanics  competitors  of  the  farmers  ;  instead  of 
consuming,  as  they  now  do,  ten  times  as  much  of  the  agri- 
cultural products  of  the  country  as  is  now  sold  in  all  Eu- 
rope. Moreover ,  l)y  such  a  policy  money-holders  can  obtain 
the  necessaries  of  life  and  servants  at  less  cost. 

It  would  be  as  unwise  for  our  country  in  time  of  war  to 
govern  the  movements  of  armies  by  the  advice  of  our 
enemy,  as  it  would  be  for  our  Government  to  allow  our  na- 
tional policy  to  be  controlled  by  the  advice  of  the  trading 
nations  of  Europe,  who  will  always  consult  their  own  inter- 
ests, entirely  independent  of  any  interests  of  ours.  It  is 
well  to  remember,  that  nothing  can  be  purchased  cheap  of 
foreign  countries,  that  must  be  bought  at  the  expense  of 

G  ^  €/ 

leaving  our  own  labor  unemployed,  and  our  own  good  raw 
materials  unused.  I  advocate  the  cause  of  our  manufac- 
turing interests,  because  they  secure  to  the  farmer  his  sur- 
est and  best  market  for  the  agricultural  product  of  the 
country,  and  because  experience  has  demonstrated  the  fact, 
that  the  surest  way  to  maintain  our  independence,  and 
cheapen  goods  to  the  consumer,  is  to  foster  the  home  pro- 
ductions of  our  country,  and  give  diversified  employment  to 
our  people.  I  advocate  an  American  system,  because  I  de- 
sire the  political  power  and  the  financial  honor  of  the  nation 
to  be  maintained  and  vindicated  before  the  world.  This 
can  be  most  effectually  accomplished  by  making  ourselves 
independent,  as  far  as  our  own  soil,  climate  and  good  raw 
materials  will  enable  us  to  produce  the  articles  we  need; 
and  this  they  do  with  as  small  an  expense  of  labor  as  it  would 
require  to  produce  the  same  articles  in  any  other  part  of 
the  world.  I  advocate  a  policy,  that  will  maintain  the 
National  Government  and  pay  the  nation's  debt  out  of 
duties  on  imports.  The  heaviest  duties  should  be  laid  on 
all  articles  of  luxury,  and  the  lightest  duties  on  all  articles, 
that  will  aid  in  securing  a  diversified  employment  to  our 
people. 

24 


370  TARIFF. 

There  is  nothing  else  our  Government  can  do,  that  will 
so  effectually  stimulate  and  develop  all  the  best  energies  of 
a  free  people,  as  will  the  adoption  of  a  just,  uniform  and 
unyielding  system  of  money.  It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted, 
that  our  Government  failed  in  its  very  commencement  to 
perform  the  most  important  duty,  enjoined  by  the  Consti- 
tution. They  should  never  have  allowed  the  individual 
States  to  issue  paper  money,  that  was  to  all  intents  Mils  of 
credit.  It  has  been  the  inflation  of  paper  money,  that  has 
so  raised  the  price  of  all  property  and  labor,  that  we  now 
tempt  the  world  to  sell  us  everything,  and  we  have  made 
everything  with  us  too  dear  to  sell  with  profit  in  return. 
Free  Trade  with  foreign  nations  must,  where  all  things 
have  been  made  unequal  by  the  use  of  paper  money,  prove 
in  the  future,  as  it  has  in  the  past,  a  delusion  and  a  snare. 
It  must  in  the  future,  as  it  has  in  the  past,  bring  panic, 
pressure  and  ruin  to  untold  thousands  made  bankrupt  by 
the  change  of  value  of  all  kinds  of  property.  This  must 
be  the  result  of  leaving  our  own  labor  unemployed  and  our 
own  good  raw  materials  unused.  The  high  price  of  labor 
and  of  all  the  products  of  labor,  has  made  a  tariff  of  duties 
on  imports  absolutely  indispensable  to  enable  the  Govern- 
ment to  pay  the  National  Debt.  The  duties  must  equal  in 
amount  the  full  extent  of  the  increase  in  the  price  of  prop- 
erty and  labor  by  the  use  and  inflation  of  paper  money. 
"Washington  declared  a  fact,  when  he  said  that  "  In  exact 
proportion  as  we  either  alloy  the  precious  metals,  or  pour 
paper  money  into  the  volume  of  the  circulating  medium, 
just  in  that  proportion  will  everything  in  a  country  rise, 
and  labor  will  be  the  last  that  will  feel  it.  It  will  not 
benefit  the  farmer  or  the  mechanic,  as  it  will  only  enable 
the  debtor  to  pay  his  debt  with  a  shadow  instead  of  a 

substance." 

PETER  COOPER. 


TARIFF.  371 

LETTER  TO  JACKSON  SHELTZ,  ESQ. 

NEW  YORK,  November,  1874. 

JACKSON  S.  SHULTZ,  ESQ., 

MY  DEAR  SIR— I  am  glad  to  know,  that  you  approve  of 
my  efforts  to  find  out,  how  and  where  we  have  drifted  finan- 
cially as  a  nation ;  and  as  far  as  possible  to  show,  how  a 
wisely  and  well  arranged  revenue  tariff  has  been  made  in- 
dispensable, as  the  only  efficient  remedy  for  the  paralyzed 
condition  of  the  trade  and  commerce  of  our  country. 

I  agree  with  you  most  heartily  in  the  belief,  that  a  tariff 
should  be  strictly  for  revenue,  and  should  be  raised  by  spe- 
cific duties,  and  from  the  smallest  number  of  articles,  that 
will  yield  an  amount  sufficient  to  enable  the  people  to  pay 
their  town,  city,  State  and  National  debts. 

I  well  recollect  the  effects  of  all  the  tariffs,  that  have  been 
passed  by  our  Government.  The  first  one  soon  enabled  the 
Government  to  pay  off  al.l  the  old  National  debt.  Its  repeal 
shrunk  the  values  of  all  property  and  labor,  and  brought 
on  the  country  a  widespread  ruin,  frightful  to  contemplate. 
This  state  of  things  continued,  until  the  Government  was 
compelled  as  its  only  means  of  relief  to  adopt  another 
tariff,  that  soon  brought  the  country  into  a  condition  of 
prosperity  greater  than  ever. 

The  history  of  one  tariff  has  been  the  history  of  all  that 
have  been  enacted — their  repeal  has  brought  ruin  and  their 
reenactment  has  brought  prosperity. 

The  advantages  of  a  revenue  tariff  have  resulted  from 
the  stimulus  it  gives  to  all  the  industries  of  the  country  and 
the  restraint  it  exerts  upon  the  extravagant  use  of  the  fab- 
rics of  other  countries.  This  was  the  besetting  sin  of  our 
people  under  the  old  colonial  system,  when,  as  Doctor 
Franklin  says,  "  the  American  people,  under  the  colo- 
nial Government,  were  so  immoderately  fond  of  the  manu- 
factures and  superfluities  of  foreign  countries,  that  they 
could  not  be  restrained  from  purchasing  them." 

The  advice  of  Bonamy  Price  may  be  adopted  by  our 


372  TARIFF. 

people  with  great  advantage.  He  advises  that  we,  as  a 
people,  should  produce  more  and  consume  less.  To  bring 
this  about  it  will  require  a  course  of  action  by  the  General 
Government,  calculated  to  reinvigorate  the  paralyzed  in- 
dustries of  our  country.  As  one  means  to  promote  indus- 
try, it  may  be  well  for  our  Government  to  consider,  whether 
an  export  bounty  on  agricultural  and  manufacturing  pro- 
ducts would  not  enable  our  farmers  to  place  their  produce 
to  better  advantage  in  foreign  markets,  and  thus  make  it 
the  interest  of  our  people  to  act  in  accordance  with  the  ad- 
vice of  Sir  Robert  Feel  to  his  countrymen,  when  he  says  : 
"  Buy  of  yourselves  and  sell  to  yourselves."  The  savings 
of  a  nation  will  be  found  in  the  quantity,  that  it  produces 
in  comparison  with  that  which  it  consumes. 

Importers  and  dealers  in  foreign  products  will  find  it  for 
their  interest  to  advocate  measures,  that  will  stimulate  in- 
dustry as  the  best'means  to  bring  about  a  healthy  trade,  in- 
stead of  killing  the  goose,  that  lays  the  golden  egg. 

The  common  fallacy,  that  greenbacks  depreciated  in 
value,  as  gold  appreciated,  is  now  annihilated  by  the  pres- 
ent decline  of  gold,  while  the  amount  of  outstanding  green- 
backs has  been  increased  by  a  small  amount.  It  was  the 
large  issues  of  paper  money,  loaned  on  deposits,  that  caused 
the  rise  and  speculation'  in  gold,  as  it  became  an  article  of 
commerce.  As  the  speculation  in  gold  subsided  the  price 
returned  to  its  normal  value. 

I  believe,  that  I  have  shown  beyond  all  controversy  in 
my  late  article,  published  in  the  Tribune  of  this  city,  that 
the  United  States  were  bound,  from  the  day  the  Constitu- 
tion was  adopted,  to  take  and  hold  the  entire  control  of 
all,  that  has  ever  been  allowed  to  circulate  as  money, — 
as  none  is  legal  without  the  stamp  of  the  Government  upon 
it. 

I  have  shown,  that  the  General  Government  has  not  only 
failed  to  prevent  the  local  banks  from  issuing  bills  of  credit 
in  the  form  of  pictures,  called  money,  but  it  has  failed  to 
furnish  what  Thomas  Jefferson  said  ought  to  have  been  fur- 


•    TARIFF.  373 

nished,  namely  "  Treasury  Notes,"  based  on  the  credit  of 
the  United  States,  and  in  an  amount  equal  to  the  amount 
of  gold  and  silver,  that  would  circulate  if  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  paper  money  allowed.  Such  a  currency  should 
orily  increase  as  per  capita  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  coun- 
try, and  would  carry  with  it  all  the  credit,  that  our  Govern- 
ment could  give  it.  And  being  a  legal  tender  in  payment 
of  all  debts  to  the  Government  and  individuals,  and  for 
duties  on  imports,  by  simply  adding  an  amount  in  currency, 
that  will  make  it  equal  to  the  average  price,  which  gold  had 
borne  during  the  month  preceding  the  demand  for  pay- 
ment, or  the  maturing  of  the  contract.  This  would  be  a 
paper  money,  suited  to  all  the  business  of  the  country,  and 
would  be  far  more  valuable  than  gold  for  ordinary  business 
purposes,  for  the  reason  that  it  would  not  be  constantly 
changing  in  volume,  as  gold  and  silver  will  by  the  oper- 
ations of  foreign  trade. 

Paper  money  is  said  to  have  been  more  valuable  than 
gold  for  some  five  hundred  years  in  the  city  of  Venice. 
The  people  found,  that  they  could  well  afford  to  pay  the 
State  for  taking  care  of  their  gold,  while  a  bill  in  evidence 
of  their  ownership  of  gold  was  passing  freely  in  all  the 
business  operations  of  the  country,  thus  showing  what  Prof. 
Bonamy  Price  said  of  money  is  true,  namely,  that  Money  is 
a  tool  for  the  convenient  exchange  of  one  form  of  labor  for 
another.  Our  nation  will  show  its  wisdom  by  continuing 
to  use  a  tool,  which  our  experience  has  shown  to  be  the 
best  for  the  convenient  exchange  of  all  forms  of  labor,  that 
was  ever  invented  by  the  ingenuity  of  man.  I  mean  a  legal 
tender  paper  money,  issued,  as  it  was,  by  the  people's  Gov- 
ernment to  save  for  the  people  the  nation's  life.  It  has 
done  its  work  nobly  and  should  be  embalmed  in  the  hearts 
of  our  people,  as  one  of  the  greatest  blessings,  developed 
by  the  terrible  war  through  which  we  have  passed.  It 
should  have  been  issued  from  the  first  as  a  war  measure, 
that  makes  every  dollar  expended  a  valid  claim  upon  the 
whole  property  of  the  country  for  its  final  payment.  Our 


374  TAEIFF. 

nation's  credit  should  avail  towards  paying  the  nation's 
debts,  instead  of  being  loaned  out  without  interest. 

As  merchants,  farmers  and  mechanics,  it  behooves  us  to 
know,  that  a  nation,  continuing  to  spend  more  than  it  pro- 
duces, is  clearly  on  the  road  to  ruin. 

It  is  well  for  us  to  know,  that  in  1873  we  imported  $119,- 
556,288  more  than  we  exported.  In  18T2  we  brought  mer- 
chandise from  abroad  amounting  to  $610*,904,622,  and 
exported  $428,487,131,  more  than  182  millions  deficit. 
This  shows  where  we  must  land,  if  we  continue  to  buy 
foreign  manufactured  articles  in  greater  amount  than  the 
exports  of  our  country.  We  have  got  to  learn  to  do  as  Sir 
Robert  Peel  says  to  his  people :  *'  Buy  of  yourselves  and 
sell  to  yourselves  "  and  give  employment  to  our  own  people. 

There  is  one  power  in  our  country,  that  can  do  more  to 
restore  confidence  and  general  prosperity  than  any  other, 
with  which  I  ani  acquainted ; — I  mean  the  power  of  the 
various  working  men's  organizations  of  our  country. 

I  claim  to  have  been  a  working  man  through  a  long,  la- 
borious, mechanical  life,  with  all  my  sympathies  enlisted  in 
efforts,  intended  to  elevate  and  better  their  condition. 

In  view  of  the  sufferings  of  so  large  a  number,  I  ask  my- 
self why  is  it,  that  so  many,  who  are  all  as  anxiously  desir- 
ing happiness  as  I  or  any  one  can  do,  are  now  suffering 
all  forms  of  poverty  and  want,  and  that  in  a  country,  where 
God  has  spread  out  broad  fields,  ever  ready  to  yield  all 
that  is  good  for  food,  pleasant  to  the  eye,  and  calculated  to 
make  us  wise  ? 

I  would  most  gladly,  if  I  could,  show  my  fellow  working 
men  the  great  mistake  in  their  organized  efforts  to  force 
their  employers  to  pay  as  much  for  a  poor  workman  as  for 
a  good  workman  : — And  by  their  laws  they  deprive  their 
own  children  from  learning  trades,  that  would  make  them 
in  the  future  useful  citizens  of  the  Republic.  All  the  re- 
straints, that  prevent  the  members  from  working  for  the 
most  they  can  get,  and  as  many  hours  as  they  choose,  are  a 
self-imposed  slavery.  These  restraints  and  the  taxes  they 


TAEIFF.  875 

levy  on  their  different  orders  to  maintain  strikes,  have  done 
as  much  to  break  up  the  regular  business  of  the  country, 
and  drive  commerce  away  from  our  own  city  as  any  one 
thing,  with  which  I  am  acquainted. 

I  should  have  regarded  it  as  a  terrible  hardship,  if  I  had 
found  myself  compelled  to  contribute  out  of  my  twelve 
shillings  per  day  to  maintain  strikes,  that  would  have  pre- 
vented me  from  getting  into  a  business,  that  has  given  me 
a  house  and  home  with  the  ordinary  comforts,  until  I  have 
now  nearly  reached  my  eighty-fourth  year. 

If  working  men  will  be  advised  by  a  friend,  they  will 
declare  their  independence  of  all  these  organizations,  and 
associate  themselves  in  business  with  such  capital  and 
friends  as  they  can  find,  and  take  all  the  profits  to  them- 
selves. 

Such  an  independence  will  command  for  workmg  men 
the  heartfelt  sympathy  and  respect  of  the  best  men  of  our 
country  and  the  world,  and  will,  1  hope,  induce  many  to 
put  forth  efforts  to  promote  the  substantial  interests  of 
working  men,  by  acts  and  deeds,  that  will  leave  an  influ- 
ence, when  this  hand,  that  now  writes,  shall  have  mouldered 
to  the  dust,  and  these  eyes,  that  now  see  will  look  down 
from  a  brighter  and  a  better  world  on  a  continued  stream 
of  beneficent  influences,  flowing  out  and  on,  from  every 
good  word  and  work. 

Yery  respectfully  yours, 

PETER  COOPER. 

• 

OPEN  LETTER. 

AUGUST,  1882. 

To  THE  HON.  PRESIDENT  AND  GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  TARIFF 

COMMISSION  : 

The  most  profound  anxiety  for  the  welfare  of  this  great 
and  glorious  country  impels  me  to  offer  some  thoughts  on 
what  I  regard  as  one  of  the  most  important  subjects,  that 
can  be  presented  to  the  American  people.  My  experience 
has  compelled  me  to  see  and  know,  that  all  trade  with  for- 


376  TAEIFF. 

eign  nations  is  a  kind  of  commercial  war  /  it  is  a  war  of 
interests — as  the  men  of  all  countries  are  trying  to  buy  as 
cheap  and  sell  as  dear  as  they  can  ;  this  they  do  by  the  use 
of  all  the  arts,  both  fair  and  foul,  that  human  ingenuity 
can  invent.  There  is  nothing  comparable  with  the  evils, 
that  have  resulted,  and  may  result,  from  a  war  of  commerce. 
Invasion  of  armies  is  attended  by  waste  of  property,  de- 
struction of  life,  and  suspension  of  all  fair  exchanges  of  the 
products  of  labor  ;  but  with  the  return  of  peace,  all  is  as  it 
was  before.  Such,  however,  is  not  the  case  with  the  sub- 
stitution of  foreign  trade  for  the  home  commerce  of  the 
products  of  our  own  land  and  our  own  labor. 

Under  the  artful  and  alluring  fascinations  of  the  powers 
of  foreign  trade  associations  for  mutual  benefit,  patriotism 
dies  out,  intellect  declines,  and  the  life-blood  of  a  nation 
slowly  e"bbs  away,  rendering  recovery  difficult,  and  closing 
finally  with  the  material  and  moral  death  of  a  nation. 

The  great  boon,  provided  for  us  by  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  with  its  Constitution  and  its  code  of  laws, 
was,  that  Congress  shall  have  power  to  make  all  laws,  which 
shall  be  necessary  and  proper,  to  levy  taxes,  duties,  imposts 
and  excises,  to  pay  the  debts  and  provide  for  the  common 
defence  and  the  general  welfare  of  these  United  States. 

To  accomplish  these  objects,  the  Constitution  binds  every 
member  of  the  Government,  under  the  solemnity  of  his 
oath  of  office,  to  make  their  every  legislative  act  an  intent 
to  establish  justice  by  Jhe  organization,  and  execution  of 
all  laws,  which  shall  be  necessary  and  proper  to  provide  a 
shield  of  protection  for  the  lives,  liberty  and  happiness  of 
the  American  people.  This  can  only  be  accomplished  by 
adopting  a  just  balance  in  a  true  system  of  money,  weights, 
and  measures,  by  which  justice  can  be  most  conveniently 
established  in  the  operations  of  trade  with  foreign  nations 
and  among  the  several  States. 

Our  Constitution  was  intended  to  use  the  strength  and 
power  of  the  nation,  in  giving  protection  to  all  the  rights 
and  interests  in  all  and  every  form,  in  which  labor  can  be 


TAEIFF.  377 

applied  to  promote  the  highest  welfare  of  the  American 
people.  Daniel  Webster  has  declared  what  all  must  see 
and  know  to  be  true,  and  in  words  of  warning,  as  well  as  to 
what  our  Government  is  bound  to  do,  in  order  to  secure  the 
rewards  of  honest  labor  to  the  heads  and  hands,  that  earned 
them.  He  says : 

"  The  producing  cause  of  all  prosperity  is  labor  !  labor ! ! 
labor  ! ! !  The  Government  was  made  to  protect  this  in- 
dustry, and  to  give  it  both  encouragement  and  security.  To 
this  very  end,  with  this  precise  object  in  view,  power  was 
given  to  Congress  over  the  money  of  the  country." 

He  predicted  that  conditions,  which  permitted  the  rapid 
accumulation  of  property  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  remitting 
the  masses  to  poverty,  would  soon  destroy  free  institutions. 

The  experience  of  a  long  life  made  me  see  and  know, 
how  utterly  impossible  it  is  for  the  American  people  to  buy 
anything  cheap  from  a  foreign  country,  that  must  be  bought 
at  the  expense  of  LEAVING  OUR  GOOD  EAW  MATERIALS  UN- 
USED, AND  OUR  OWN  LABORERS  WITHOUT  EMPLOYMENT,  THUS 
COMPELLING  THE  MILLIONS  OF  THE  MECHANICS  OF  OUR  OWN 
COUNTRY  TO  GO  INTO  COMPETITION  WITH  THE  FARMERS,  IN- 
STEAD OF  CONSUMING,  AS  THEY  NOW  DO,  SOME  THREE-QUAR- 
TERS OF  ALL  THE  AGRICULTURAL  PRODUCTS,  NOW  RAISED  IN 
OUR  COUNTRY.  ' 

The  advocates  of  free  trade  seem  to  be  perfectly  regard- 
less of  the  wants  of  those  millions  of  men  and  women 
throughout  our  country,  who  have  nothing  to  sell  but  their 
labor ;  those  millions,  having  been  in  the  main  reduced  to 
this  condition  of  poverty  and  want  by  a  course  of  financial 
legislation  so  unwise  and  so  unjust,  that  John  Sherman, 
when  a  Senator,  declared  that  it  was  without  a  parallel  in 
ancient  or  modern  times.  In  his  speech  on  that  occasion 
he  said : 

"  That  every  citizen  of  the  United  States  had  conformed 
his  business  to  the  legal  tender  clause." 

His  whole  speech  at  that  time  went  to  show,  that  the 
legal  money,  which  the  Government  had  paid  out  in  full 


378  TAKIFF. 

settlement  for  all  the  forms  of  labor  and  property,  had  been 
actually  used  and  consumed  in  the  prosecution  of  our  late 
terrible  war  for  the  nation's  life.  Senator  Sherman  was 
right  when  he  declared,  that  the  nation's  currency  could  not 
be  contracted  without  bringing  ruin  to  the  debtor  and  the 
laboring  classes  throughout  our  country. 

This  cruel  and  unwise  contraction  of  the  nation's  cur- 
rency has,  in  connection  with  repeated  alterations  in  our 
tariff  laws,  broken  up  the  manufacturing  business  of  thou- 
sands throughout  our  country,  and  has  shown,  that  a  tariff 
of  duties  should  be  based  on  principles,  that  will  give  secur- 
ity and  stability  in  the  manufacture  of  all  articles,  that  can 
be  made  out  of  our  own  good  raw  materials,  and  can  be  put 
in  forms  of  usefulness  in  our  country,  with  as  small  an 
amount  of  human  labor  in  this  country,  as  in  any  other  part 
of  the  world. 

This  being  an  incontrovertible  fact,  there  is  no  good  rea- 
son, why  those  great  manufacturing  interests  of  our  own 
country  should  be  periodically  ruined,  as  they  have  so  often 
been,  by  repeated  alterations  of  tariffs.  These  alterations 
have  been  most  successfully  engineered  through  our  Con- 
gress by  the  consummate  skill  of  foreign  diplomats,  co- 
operating as  they  do  with  the  great  manufacturing  and 
mercantile  interests  of  our  own  and  other  countries,  which 
can  well  afford  to  spend  millions  to  break  up  and  keep  down 
the  rising  manufactures  of  this  great  and  growing  country. 

History  shows,  that  England  gave  the  strongest  kind  of 
protection  to  her  manufacturing  interests,  until  they  had 
attained  to  such  a  degree  of  power  and  perfection  of  ma- 
chinery, that  enabled  the  English,  with  the  help  of  restrain- 
ing laws,  which  their  Government  had  passed  to  prevent 
their  colonies  from  manufacturing  anything  for  themselves, 
etc.  ... 

All  classes  should  gather  wisdom  by  reflecting  on  the  his- 
tory and  the  experience  of  the  past. 

Free  trade  is  beautiful  in  theory,  and  will  be  in  prac- 
tice, where  all  things  are  equal  and  peaceful  in  the  rela- 


TARIFF.  379 

tions  of  nations,  and  rapid  transit  shall  go  far  to  annihilate 
space. 

Our  Government,  having  allowed  and  used  paper  money, 
until  the  day's  labor  has  been  made  to  cost  at  least  two- 
thirds  more  than  a  similar  day's  labor  would  cost  in  other 
countries,  to  bring  about  an  equality  in  trade,  will  require  a 
tariff  based  on  the  difference  in  the  cost,  that  will  purchase 
a  day's  labor  in  our  country  as  compared  with  that  of  for- 
eign countries. 

If  the  farmers  desire  to  secure  for  themselves  a  reliable 
market  and  the  highest  price  for  their  product,  they  must 
use  the  means  best  calculated  to  effect  that  object — they 
must  encourage  the  manufacture  of  the  articles  they  con- 
sume, and  have  them  made  as  near  their  homes  as  possible, 
etc.  .  .  . 

After  all  I  have  read,  written,  and  published  to  the  world 
on  the  all-important  subject  of  a  tariff,  I  come  to  the  con- 
clusion, that  it  should  give  full  and  complete  protection  to 
what  Daniel  Webster  calls  the  producing  cause  of  all  pros- 
perity, which  he  says  is  "  labor !  labor  ! !  labor  ! ! !  " 

This  can  only  be  accomplished  by  an  amount  of  duties, 
that  shall  equal  the  difference  between  the  cost  of  a  day's 
labor  in  our  country,  as  compared  with  the  cost  of  a  similar 
day's  labor  in  other  countries. 

The  difference,  when  carefully  examined,  will  be  found 
to  be  on  an  average,  in  this  country,  of  from  fifty  to  one 
hundred  and  fifty  per  cent,  more,  than  what  is  now  being 
paid  for  similar  labor  in  other  countries. 

It  will  thus  be  seen,  that  justice  cannot  be  established — 
and  the  general  welfare  of  the  American  people  be  secure, 
except  by  the  manufacture  of  all  those  articles,  which  are 
absolutely  necessary  for  our  consumption  as  a  free  and  inde- 
pendent nation.  Duties  on  all  the  most  necessary  and  es- 
sential articles  of  industry,  which  our  Government  was 
made  to  protect,  encourage,  and  secure,  should  be  as  nearly 
prohibitoiy  as  possible.  An  amount  of  duties  should  be 
collected  from  the  smallest  number  of  articles,  that  will  fur- 


380  TARIFF. 

nisli  an  amount  sufficient  to  pay  the  expenses'  of  the  general 
government  of  our  country.  This  would  relieve  our  people 
from  all  internal  taxation  for  the  support  of  our  national 
Government. 

Mr.  Bonamy  Price,  in  his  book  on  political  economy, 
quotes  from  Hon.  Ward,  M. P.,  where  he  says,  that  99  per 
cent,  of  the  communications  on  the  tariff  represent  individ- 
ual interests,  and  demand  protection  for  articles  they  pro- 
duce. Mr.  Ward,  Bonamy  Price  and  all  the  advocates  of 
unqualified  free  trade,  base  their  arguments  on  a  false  foun- 
dation ;  they  fail  to  see,  that  our  Government  has  allowed 
local  banks  to  issue  pictures  or  bills  of  credit,  called  money, 
in  open  violation  of  the  Constitution,  which  delegates  only 
to  Congress  the  power  of  coining  money  and  regulating  thfe 
value  thereof ;  also  of  regulating  commerce  between  the 
United  States  and  foreign  countries. 

Our  Government,  having  neglected  from  its  commence- 
ment to  make  necessary  and  proper  laws  to  issue  a  strictly 
national  currency,  based  on  the  whole  property  of  the  coun- 
try, and  to  establish  a  tariff  only  to  raise  a  revenue  suffi- 
cient to  pay  the  national  debt — should  even  now  begin  to 
assert  that  power  and  carry  it  out  to  the  letter  ;  for  it  is  yet 
time  to  do  right,  correct  errors  and  secure  full  and  complete 
protection  to  the  useful  industries  and  labor,  now  employed 
in  all  the  important  manufacturing  interests  of  our  country ; 
but  there  seems  to  be  little  hope  of  establishing  justice, 
when  our  late  Congress  authorized  the  collection  and  accu- 
mulation of  $150,000,000,  which  they  tried  very  hard  to 
squander  without  much  thought  of  appropriating  any  and 
all  surplus  towards  paying  our  enormous  debt,  which  would, 
not  only  relieve  taxpayers  and  producers,  but  the  toiling 
masses. 

History  could  probably  not  show  such  another  accumula- 
tion of  revenue  in  any  other  country,  ancient  or  modern, 
monarchy  or  republic,  and  any  nation  or  people,  that  allows 
it,  is  on  the  high  road  to  corruption  and  ruin. 

I  indulge  the  hope,  that  you,  Honorable  Commissioners, 


TAEIFF.  381 

will  read  with  care  my  humble  efforts  to  call  and  pin  the 
attention  of  your  Honorable  Body  on  the  absolute  necessity 
there  is,  that  the  great  and  all-important  questions  of  a 
national  tariff,  and  of  a  strictly  national  paper  currency 
must  be  settled  in  the  interest  of  the  mass  of  the  American 
people,  and  not  as  they  are  now,  in  favor  of  monopolies  of 
all  kinds,  especially  banks  and  railroads. 

Most  respectfully  yours, 

PETER  COOPEK. 


The  attention  of  your  Honorable  Committee  is  respectfully 
called  to  a  few  facts  and  figures  in  relation  to  the  exports 
and  imports  of  merchandise,  and  of  gold  and  silver  coin  and 
bullion,  during  the  last  twenty-three  years,  and  the  influence 
our  foreign  commerce  has  on  the  volume  of  currency,  and  the 
relation  of  that  volume  to  the  industries  of  the  country. 
These  facts  and  figures  should  convince  every  intelligent 
man,  that  to  disturb  our  present  tariff,  especially  in  the  way 
of  reductions  of  duties  on  foreign  imports,  will  be  attended 
with  great  danger  to  the  business  prosperity  of  our  own 
country. 

From  the  preliminary  report  of  the  Chief  of  the  Bureau 
of  Statistics,  published  in  the  Bankers  Magazine  for  Sep- 
tember, we  obtain  some  important  facts  in  relation  to  the 
value  of  gold  and  silver  coin  and  bullion,  imported  into,  and 
exported  from,  the  United  States  from  the  year  1860  to 
1882,  inclusive  ;  also,  of  the  excess  of  imports  over  exports. 
"  The  total  exports  of  coin  duringt  his  period  was  $932,226,- 
125,  and  the  total  imports  only  $183,608,572. 

During  this  period  the  exports  of  coin  and  bullion  ex- 
ceeded the  imports  for  twenty  years,  and  the  imports  ex- 
ceeded the  exports  only  for  three  years,  and  the  total  amount 
of  exports  of  gold  and  silver  coin  and  bullion  over  the  im- 
ports in  twenty-three  years  was  $749,617,553. 

During  this  entire  period  we  have  been  under  a  high 
tariff,  and  a  portion  of  the  time  a  war  tariff  at  that.  If  we 
have  lost  $749,617,553  of  gold  and  silver  coin  and  bullion, 


882  TARIFF. 

which  constitutes  the  base  of  our  currency  under  a  high 
tariff,  what  would  have  been  our  loss  had  we  been  under  a 
system  of  free  trade,  or  even  with  any  great  reduction  in 
our  present  rates  of  duties  on  foreign  imports. 

We  learn,  also,  from  this  report,  that  in  the  year  1881  the 
total  exports  of  the  country  were  $902,377,346,  and  the  im- 
ports were  $642,664,628,  and  the  excess  of  exports  over  im- 
ports were  $250,712,718  ;  but,  in  1882,  the  total  exports 
were  only  $750,351,173,  and  the  total  imports  were  $724,- 
623,317,  leaving  the  excess  of  exports  over  imports  only 
$25,727,856. 

From  these  figures  it  will  be  seen,  that  the  increase  in 
our  imports  during  the  past  year  has  been  $91,958,689,  or 
12.7  per  cent. ;  and  that  there  has  been  a  falling  off  in  our 
exports  in  the  year  1882,  amounting  to  $132,026,173,  over 
those  of  1881,  an  actual  change  in  the  balance  of  trade  of 
$233,984,862. 

Now,  if  such  an  enormous  change  is  taking  place  in  one 
year,  under  a  system  of  what  may  be  called  a  high  tariff, 
what,  may  I  ask,  would  be  the  result,  if  an  effort  was  made 
to  reduce  the  rates  of  duties  ? 

The  report  of  the  Chief  of  Bureau  of  Statistics  also  in- 
forms us,  that  out  of  $91,958,689  of  increase  in  imports 
during  the  past  year  $69,809,869  were  dutiable  articles,  and 
the  balance  on  articles  admitted  free  of  duty. 

From  the  above  table,  in  relation  to  the  exports  and  im- 
ports of  gold  and  silver  coin  and  bullion,  it  will  be  seen,  that 
in  the  fiscal  year  ending  in  1882,  the  exports  over  imports 
were  $6,940,186.  You  will  also  observe  from  the  foregoing 
table  that,  in  1881,  the  excess  of  imports  over  exports  of 
coin  was  $91,168,650.  This  shows,  that  in  1881  we  had 
coming  into  the  country  a  balance  of  over  $91,000,000  of 
gold  and  silver  coin  and  bullion,  while  in  1882  we  have  had 
$6,940,186  going  out  of  the  country. 

Your  Honorable  Committee  must  be  aware  of  the  disas- 
trous influence  upon  the  business  industries  of  our  country, 
that  a  reduction  of  the  volume  of  our  currency  always  pro- 


TAEIFF.  383 

duces.  To  contract  the  currency  always  tends  to  shrink 
prices.  If  you  take  away  the  gold  and  silver  coin  and  bul- 
lion, you  take  away  the  foundation,  upon  which  all  other 
currency  rests. 

We  have  over  $700,000,000  of  paper  currency,  that  is 
practically  redeemable  in  coin.  If  any  great  amount  of  this 
coin  is  taken  out  of  the  country,  will  it  not  endanger  the 
ability  of  the  Government  arid  the  banks  to  redeem  this 
currency  in  coin,  and  be  likely  to  precipitate  a  financial 
panic  ? 

These  facts  should  make  your  Honorable  Committee  hes- 
itate long  before  you  make  any  alteration  whatever  in  our 
present  system  of  tariff. 


Some  additional  information,  concerning  the  tariff,  es- 
pecially Franklin's  letter  to  Humphrey  Marshall,  will  not  be 
out  of  place  here  : 

LONDON,  April  22,  1771. 

SIR : — I  duly  received  your  favors  of  the  4th  of  October 
and  the  17th  of  November.  It  gave  me  pleasure  to  hear, 
that  tho'  the  merchants  had  departed  from  their  agreement 
of  Non-Importation,  the  Spirit  of  Industry  and  Frugality 
was  likely  to  continue  among  the  People.  I  am  obliged  to 
you  for  your  concern  on  my  account.  The  letters  you  men- 
tion gave  great  offence  here  ;  but  that  was  not  attended  with 
the  immediate  ill-consequences  to  my  Interest,  that  seem  to 
have  been  hoped  for  by  those,  that  sent  copies  of  them 
hither. 

If  our  Country  People  would  well  consider,  that  all  they 
save  in  refusing  to  purchase  foreign  Gewgaws,  and  in  making 
their  own  apparel  being  apply'd  to  the  Improvement  of  their 
Plantations,  would  render  those  more  profitable  as  yielding 
a  greater  Produce,  I  should  hope  they  would  persist  reso- 
lutely in  their  present  commendable  Industry  and  Frugality. 
And  there  is  still  a  farther  consideration. 

The  colonies,  that  produce  Provisions,  grow  very  fast. 
But  of  the  countries,  that  take  off  those  Provisions,  some  do 


384  TAEIFF. 

not  increase  at  all,  as  the  European  nations  and  others,  as 
the  West  India  Colonies,  not  in  the  same  proportion.  So 
that  tho'  the  Demand  at  present  may  be  sufficient,  it  cannot 
long  continue  so.  Every  manufacturer,  encouraged  in  our 
Country,  makes  part  of  a  market  for  Provisions  within  our- 
selves and  saves  so  much  money  to  the  Country  as  must 
otherwise  be  exported  to  pay  for  the  manufactures  he  sup- 
plies. Here  in  England  it  is  well  known  and  understood, 
that  wherever  a  manufacture  is  established,  which  employs 
a  number  of  Hands,  it  raises  the  value  of  Lands  in  the 
neighboring  Country  all  around  it :  partly  by  the  greater  de- 
mand, near  at  hand  for  the  Produce  of  the  Land,  and  partly 
from  the  Plenty  of  money,  drawn  by  the  manufacturers  to 
that  part  of  the  Country.  It  seems,  therefore,  the  Interest 
of  all  our  Farmers  and  owners  of  Land  to  encourage  our 
young  manufacturers  in  preference  to  foreign  ones,  imported 
among  us  from  distant  countries. 

I  am  much  obliged  by  your  kind  Present  of  curious  seeds. 
They  were  welcome  gifts  to  some  of  my  Friends.  I  send 
you  herewith  some  of  the  new  Barley,  lately  introduced  into 
this  country  and  now  highly  spoken  of.  I  wish  it  may  be 
found  of  use  with  us. 

I  was  the  more  pleased  to  see  in  your  Letter  the  Improve- 
ment of  our  Paper,  having  had  a  principal  share  in  estab- 
lishing that  manufacture  among  us  many  years  ago,  by  the 
encouragement  I  gave  it. 

If  in  anything  I  can  serve  you  here,  it  will  be  a  Pleasure  to 
Your  obliged  Friend  and  humble  Servant, 

B.  FKANKLIN.* 
To  ME.  HUMPHREY  MARSHALL, 

West  Bradford,  Chester  County. 


I  quote  the  following  letter  and  statistics  to  show  how 
certain  industries  would  increase  and  prosper,  if  carefully 

*  I  own  the  original  manuscript  of  this  letter  and  consider  it  a  precious 
relic.  It  shows  the  American  Sage  in  favor  of  a  protective  tariff  and  home 
industry. 


TARIFF.  385 

encouraged  and  protected  by  a  judiciously  discriminative 
tariff : 

FLAX,    HEMP,   JUTE,   ETC.      AN   OPEN   LETTER   TO   GENERAL 
GARFIELD. 

"  153  WALWORTH  STREET, 
BROOKLYN,  N.  Y.,  llth  September,  1875. 

"GENERAL  JAMES  A.  GARFIELD: 

Sir,— In  your  speech  at  Warren,  Ohio,  as  reported  in  the 
New  York  World  of  the  4th  inst.,  you  endorsed  Senator 
Thurman's  statement  of  December  last,  that  *  over  produc- 
tion was  one  of  the  causes  of  the  panic  of  1873.' 

We  respectively  submit,  that  the  reverse  of  this  was  the 
case,  and  that  the  cause  was  mainly  from  under,  not  over 
production ! 

In  support  of  this  it  is  advanced,  that  last  year  under  pro- 
duction caused  the  United  States  to  import  two  hundred  and 
seventy-one  million  dollars  of  flax,  hemp,  jute,  ramie,  silk, 
sugar,  etc.,  viz. : 

UNITED    STATES   IMPORTS,    YEAR   ENDING   JUNE    30,    1874:   (FROM 
REPORT    OF    CHIEF   OF   BUREAU   OF    STATISTICS). 

Flax,  hemp,  jute  (and  their  manufactures) §30,000,000 

Ramie  and  silk  (and  their  manufactures) 25,000,000 

Cotton  (its  manufactures) 25,000,000 

Leather  (and  its  manufactures) 27,000,000 

Wool  (and  its  manufactures) 59,000,000 

Sugar  (and  its  manufactures) 93,000,000 

Tobacco,  rice,  etc 12,000,000 

Total  imports  (gold) $271,000,000 

From  foregoing  it  is  obvious  that,  during  past  twenty 
years,  under  production  caused  the  United  States  to  import 
over  five  billion  dollars  of  above  products,  or  more  than 
double  the  public  debt  fund,  which  on  July  1,  1875,  was 
$2,128,825,089. 

Manifestly,  our  security  lies  in  rescuing  these  products 
from  the  foreigner's  grasp ;  that  this  is  practicable  is  evident 
from  what  has  been  accomplished  in  wheat. 
25 


386  TAKIFF. 

During  twenty  years  ended  1874,  America  more  than 
doubled  its  wheat  exports  to  England  (rising  from  27  per 
cent,  to  58  per  cent.),  whilst  Russia  decreased  more  than  one- 
half  (falling  from  23  per  cent,  to  11  per  cent.). 

The  introduction  in  1855  of  reapers,  etc.,  was  invaluable 
in  enabling  America  to  become  the  chief  wheat-raising 
country  in  the  world. 

We  submit,  that  a  similar  application  of  improved  mechan- 
ics will  enable  America  to  export,  instead  of  import,  flax, 
hemp,  jute,  etc. 

We  further  submit,  that  a  sure  way  to  this  desirable  end 
lies  in  a  safe  Government  greenback  currency,  as  recom- 
mended by  the  Hon.  Peter  Cooper  in  his  Letter  on  the  Cur- 
rency, to  wit : 

That  in  the  future  we  must  put  the  whole  power  of  coining 
money  or  issuing  currency  where,  as  Jefferson  says,  by  the 
Constitution  it  properly  belongs,  *  entirely  in  the  hands  of 
the  Government ; '  that  this  currency  must  be  convertible 
into  Government  interest-bearing  bonds,  over  which  the 
Government  has  entire  control;  that  the  said  greenbacks 
should  be  full  legal  tenders,  and  that  the  use  of  gold  or  other 
merchandise  as  money  is  a  barbarism  unworthy  of  the  age, 
etc. 

"  In  the  earlier  ages  gold  was  adopted  to  give  assumed  value 
to  bank  or  government  promissory  notes.  We  submit,  that 
greenbacks  issued  and  controlled  by  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment, backed  by  the  labor  and  intelligence  of  forty  mil- 
lions of  people  and  four  hundred  million  acres  of  the  finest 
land  under  heaven,  would  be  amply  secured,  superior  to 
existing  mode,  satisfactory  to  every  intelligent  American, 
and  hence  sufficient  for  any  other  man. 

America  is  largely  a  consuming  country,  although  pos- 
sessed of  unequalled  resources,  that  should  exalt  it  to  the 
highest  position  as  a  producing  country.  This  safe  way  is 
open ;  will  America  enter  upon  it  ? 

Yours  respectfully, 

WILSON  WATSON." 


TAEIFF. 


387 


Thus  it  may  be  seen,  by  the  above  letter,  that  it  is  im- 
possible for  us  to  import  anything  cheap  from  foreign  coun- 
tries, that  must  be  bought  at  the  expense  of  leaving  our  own 
good  raw  materials  unused,  and  our  own  people  unemployed. 

PETEB  COOPEE. 

New  York  Mercantile  Journal,  March  31,  1877. 

"  AMERICA  VERSUS  RUSSIA. 

'  The  figures  in  the  following  table,  showing  the  compara- 
tive product  of  some  of  the  leading  staples  in  Russia  and 
America,  have  been  carefully  compiled  from  reliable  sources, 
and  will  repay  more  than  a  superficial  study : 

AMERICA  m  1872. 


Acres. 

Bushels. 

Bushels 

Average 
ac 

Value  per 
re. 

1872. 

1875. 

Barley  

1  397  082 

26  846  400 

19  2 

$14  1Q 

<Jt1  ft  73 

Buckwheat 

448  4Q7 

81QO    Kf)() 

-101 

-1  K   0  A 

19  A.f\ 

Indian  corn    

35  526  836 

1  092  719  000 

on  7 

19  94 

19  3ft 

Oats  

9  000  769 

271  747  000 

30  1 

10  14 

10  8ft 

Rye  

1  048  654 

14  888  600 

14  1 

10  83 

10  09 

Wheat  

20  858  35° 

040  007  inn 

no 

14  87 

niA 

68,280,197 

1,664,831,600 

EUSSIA  IN"  1872. 


Acres. 

Bushels. 

Bushels 
per  acre. 

Bushels  per 
acre  in  favor 
of  America. 

Barley  .        .      . 

15,511,609 

124,753,750 

8. 

11.2 

Buckwheat 

11,307,660 

86,256,500 

7.6 

10.5 

Indian  corn  ...    . 

Oats  

'  32,818,89*6 

543,622,750 

16.6 

13.5 

Bye  

66,398,540 

546,832,000 

8.2 

5.9 

Wheat            .     . 

28,743,390 

157,938,000 

5.5 

6.4 

154,780,080 

1,559,403,000 

In  1875  the  number  of  acres,  cultivated  in  America,  was 
86,863.178,  and  the  number  of  bushels  produced  2,032,235,- 


388  TAEIFF. 

300,  being  a  gain,  as  compared  with  1872,   of  18,582,981 
acres  and  369,903,700  bushels. 

These  statements  clearly  show  the  superiority  of  Ameri- 
can methods  of  cultivation  over  Russian,  or  else  of  our  soil 
over  theirs,  or  both.  In  1872,  69,000,000  acres  in  America 
under  six  cereals  gave  1,664,000,000  bushels,  or  205,000,000 
(50@150  per  cent.)  more  than  Eussia  received  from  double 
the  acreage,  155,000,000  acres,  yielding  only  1,459,000,000 
bushels !  During  twenty  years  ended  1874,  America's  exports 
of  wheat  to  England  were  doubled,  rising  from  27  to  58  per 
cent,  of  England's  whole  importation,  while  Russia's  de- 
creased one-half — falling  from  23  to  11  per  cent.  In  the 
same  decade,  America  received  from  England  7  per  cent, 
more  for  its  wheat  than  Russia. 

Russia's  strength  is  apparent  in  manufactures.  In  1677 
she  had  only  233  mills,  while  in  1875  she  had  85,000.  In 
1875  her  flax  and  hemp  mills  (principally  in  Poland),  employ- 
ing 300,000  hands,  produced  150,000,000  roubles,  or  $120,- 
000,000,  worth ;  while  America,  in  1870,  had  33  bagging 
mills,  producing  less  than  $3,000,000  worth.  In  1875,  we 
imported  $25,000,000  worth  of  linens.  Russia  spins  Ameri- 
can cotton,  while  America  spins  Russian  flax ! 

America's  weakness  is  obvious  in  flax  and  hemp.  In 
1870,  we  raised  27,000,000  pounds  of  flax  and  1,750,000 
bushels  of  flax  seed;  while  in  1872,  Russia  raised  542,- 
000,000  pounds  of  flax  and  17,250,000  bushels  of  flax  seed. 
In  1870,  America  raised  12,746  tons  of  hemp ;  while  in 
1872,  Russia  raised,  967,444  tons  of  hemp,  and  14,500,000 
bushels  of  hempseed. 

The  best  Western  flax,  which  equals  Russian,  brings,  in 
New  York,  $300  per  ton.  Wheat  and  corn  lands  are  good 
for  flax,  which  is  the  most  profitable  crop  raised  in  many 
sections.  In  Morrow  County,  Ohio,  the  yield,  in  1875,  was 
$27.08  per  acre,  or  double  the  average  of  the  wheat  and 
corn  crops,  per  acre,  in  the  whole  country ;  the  latter  being 
$11.77  per  acre. 

America  excels  Russia  in  wheat ;  she  could  also  surpass 


TAKIFF.  U/389 

Eussia  in  flax  and  liemp,  marking  an  important  era  in  our 
country's  production." 

Had  we  the  Census  Eeport  of  1880,  we  could  mention 
developments  of  home  industries,  that  would  show  much 
more  favorably,  if  they  were  more  judiciously  protected ; 
but  our  late  Congressional  sessions  have  been  so 'occupied  to 
dispose  of  the  §150,000,000  surplus,  that  the  census  must 
wait,  till  all  the  spoils  were  distributed,  instead  of  applied  to 
pay  the  nation's  debt  and  stop  the  interest  thereon. 

Perhaps  flax,  hetnp,  jute,  etc.,  would  thrive  as  well  here 
as  in  Russia,  if  they  were  properly  encouraged,  and  the 
$25,000,000  worth  of  imported  linens  per  year  might  be 
produced  and  manufactured  at  home.  As  our  wheat  crops 
have  lately  surpassed  those  of  Eussia,  why  should  not  our 
flax,  hemp,  barley,  oats,  etc.,  surpass  those  of  Eussia? 
Even  silk,  tea  and  sugar,  might  be  produced  so  as  to  sup- 
ply our  wants ;  only  a  judicious  tariff  is  needed ;  then 
"  bring  producers  and  consumers  close  together,",  as  advo- 
cated by  this  most  practical  common  sense  article,  which  all 
can  understand  and  appreciate  : 

"  BEING  PRODUCERS  AND  CONSUMERS  CLOSE  TOGETHER. 

"It  may  be  deemed  an  axiom,  that  the  nearer  the  farmer 
and  manufacturer  are  brought  together  the  better  it  is  for 
both  parties.  The  doctrine,  so  often  taught,  that  the  farm- 
ers are  not  benefited  by  protective  duties  on  foreign  imports, 
is  false  in  theory  and  pernicious  in  effect.  The  frequent 
suggestion,  that  Americans  should  confine  themselves 
more  exclusively  to  agriculture,  is  either  prompted  by  a 
dense  ignorance  of  economic  laws,  or  by  the  selfish  and  un- 
principled greed  of  foreign  manufacturing  interests.  It  is 
probably  more  often  the  latter  than  the  former.  If  the 
question  of  transportation  is  alone  considered,  the  argu- 
ment is  all  on  the  side  of  protection,  as  affecting  both  parties  ; 
but  especially  so  as  regards  the  former.  It  is  as  a  rule  life 
or  death,  success  or  failure,  whether  the  farmer  sells  hie 


390  TAKIFF. 

wheat  for  $1.50  to  a  consumer  near  his  home,  or  at  $0.50  and 
sees  $1.00  absorbed  by  transportation  and  middle-men,  before 
it  reaches  the  consumer  at  some  foreign  port.  The  farmer 
is  often  blinded  to  the  fact,  that  the  foreign  manufacturer, 
having  vast  capital  and  a  monopoly  of  his  productions, 
whether  of  cloths  or  other  commodities,  dictates  the  price 
of  the  wheat  and  his  own  cloths  also.  The  question  of 
cheapness  is  a  syren  song  of  the  free  trader,  by  which  the 
farmer  is  despoiled.  No  word  is  more  seductive  or  has 
more  meanings  than  this  word  cheap.  Home  Tooke  says : 
'  The  world  is  governed  by  WORDS.'  There  is  no  word  more 
ambiguous,  or  more  sure  of  conquering  the  unwary  or 
thoughtless  than  this  word  cheap.  Strictly,  it  means  cheap- 
ness in  money.  If  an  article  brings  but  little  money,  it  is 
called  cheap.  Cheapness  is  often  produced  by  low  wages  of 
labor.  Shirts,  for  instance,  are  made  by  poor  needle  women 
at  25  cents  per  dozen.  But  what  becomes  of  the  needle 
woman,  who  makes  the  shirts  ?  Cheapness  to  her  is  a 
mockery,  for  she  has  no  money  with  which  to  buy  the  ne- 
cessities of  existence.  She  is  left  to  starvation  and  naked- 
ness. When  Dr.  Johnson  was  told,  that  eggs  were  so  cheap 
on  the  Islands,  that  many  could  be  bought  for  a  penny,  he 
said :  '  It  is  not  that  eggs  are  so  plenty,  but  pennies  are 
scarce.' 

Under  a  system  of  free  trade,  Revenue  Tariff,  so-called, 
which  kills  the  manufacturer  at  the  farmer's  door,  destroys 
his  home  market  and  reduces  the  wages  of  labor  to 'starva- 
tion prices,  becomes  a  curse.  Cheapness,  in  this  case,  proves 
to  be  ruin.  The  short-sighted  farmer,  who  has  been  misled 
to  vote  for  free  trade,  for  fear  of  helping  his  manufacturing 
neighbor,  goes  for  years  without  a  new  suit,  and  the  pro- 
ducts of  his  farm  are  absorbed  by  the  non-producing  car- 
riers and  middlemen  between  his  gates  and  a  foreign  port, 
thousands  of  miles  away.  Why  are  the  Southern  States 
becoming  more  prosperous  since  the  war  in  many  respects  ? 
Simply,  because  extensive  manufactures  of  various  branches 
are  springing  up.  This  change  creates  a  HOME  market  for 


TARIFF.  391 

the  farmer  through  the  largely  increased  means  of  consump- 
tion, and  a  very  large  item  is  saved  to  the  real  producers, 
the  farmer  and  manufacturer  alike,  in  the  saving  of  trans- 
portation. The  less  distance  products  of  ANY  kind  are 
t  carried,  the  better  it  is  for  the  consumer,  who  finally  pays 
for  everything.  Therefore,  if  farmers  will  but  study  this 
question  in  the  light  of  common  sense,  and  in  their  neigh- 
bors' best  pecuniary  and  social  interests,  as  well  as  their 
own,  they  will  surely  never  champion  a  system  of  free  trade, 
nor  even  a  Revenue  Tariff.  Follow  Henry  C.  Carey,  and 
our  own  first  and  best  friend,  Hon.  Peter  Cooper  on  this 
question,  and  you  will  not  be  far  wrong." 

This  might  be  done  at  the  South,  where  growers  and 
manufacturers  of  cotton,  sugar,  silk,  etc.,  could  be  brought 
"close  together ;  "  it  might  also  be  done  at  the  West,  where 
growers  and  manufacturers  of  wool,  flax,  hemp,  etc.,  might 
be  brought  "  close  together?  so  that  growers  and  manufac- 
turers could  benefit  each  other,  as  well  as  the  growers  of 
cattle,  vegetables  and  grain.  Let  such  common  sense  politi- 
cal economy  be  taught  and  prevail  over  this  vast  young 
country,  instead  of  Adam  Smith's,  Mai  thus',  Mill's,  Say's 
systems ;  and  let  it  be  called  "  Science  of  Good  Government? 
instead  of  Political  Economy,  which  has  been  a  tissue  of 
vague  theories,  that  might  apply  to  small  manufacturing 
countries  like  England,  France,  Netherlands,  etc.,  either  of 
which  hardly  equals  New  York  State  in  extent. 

When  those  authors  wrote  their  books,  they  had  no  idea 
of  these  facts ;  neither  have  those  writers,  who  now  imitate 
their  plausible  speculations.  It  should  be  remembered,  that 
we  have  entire  free  trade  all  over  this  vast  Kepublic,  ex- 
tending from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  and  from  Texas  to 
Alaska,  and  numbering  about  as  many  square  miles  as 
Europe. 

I  have  lately  been  reading  J.  B.  DixwelPs  "  Premises  of 
Free  Trade  "  and  Henry  George's  "  Progress  and  Poverty." 
I  am  glad  these  two  American  authors  do  not  ape  the  Eng- 


392  TAEIFF. 

lish  and  French  political  economists :  Adam  Smith,  Mal- 
thus,  Mill,  Professor  Cairnes ;  Say,  Bastiat,  Laveleye,  Mon- 
gredien,  etc.  .  .  . 

Dixwell  tells  us,  p.  35 :  "  Volumes  could  be  filled  with 
examples  of  the  errors,  committed  by  economists  of  the 
English  school  in  their  deductive  reasoning,"  etc.  .  .  . 
Page  31,  he  says :  "  A  large  proportion  of  American  con- 
verts to  free  trade  became  so  really  through  influences, 
which  are  quite  natural  and  amiable,  but  which  are  per- 
fectly innocent  of  logic.  A  vast  host  of  wealthy  and  culti- 
vated persons  every  year  visit  Great  Britain,  where  they 
find  almost  every  man,  woman  and  child  a  free  trade  mis- 
sionary, ready  to  tenderly  influence  and  instruct  their  less 
fortunate  cousins  from  the  western  side  of  the  Atlantic," 
etc.  .  .  .  Page  32,  he  observes :  "  Mr.  David  A.  Wells, 
since  his  conversion  to  free  trade,  during  a  visit  to  England, 
becomes  a  hater  of  all  tariffs,"  etc.  .  .  .  Page  23 : 
"  Professor  Cairnes  unfortunately  based  the  main  portion 
of  his  argument  upon  the  statistical  deductions  of  Mr. 
David  A.  "Wells.  The  Professor  probably  did  not  know 
how  roughly  these  had  been  handled  in  Congress,"  etc. 
.  .  .  Again,  page  31,  Dixwell  states :  "  Bastiat's  "  Soph- 
isms of  Protection "  were  translated  for  the  instruction  of 
the  American  public  under  the  auspices  of  "  The  American 
Free  Trade  League,"  etc.  .  .  .  Dixwell  gives  the  French 
political  economists  credit  for  entertaining  their  readers  by 
their  wit  and  vivacity,  if  they  do  not  instruct  them. 

Henry  George's  able  work  sets  people  thinking  on  social 
questions.  According  to  him  dangers  to  free  institutions 
result  from  the  inequalities  of  the  distribution  of  wealth  ; 
in  this  it  seems  to  be  an ti monopoly.  After  examining  the 
Malthusian  theory  he  tells  us,  p.  134 :  "  That  theory  is  ut- 
terly inconsistent  with  the  facts.  It  is  really  a  gratuitous 
attribution  to  the  laws  of  God,  etc.  .  .  .  For  we  have 
yet  to  find  what  does  produce  poverty  amid  advancing 
wealth."  Critics  accuse  him  of  communism,  because  he 
does  not  seem  to  endorse  property  in  land.  I  consider  his 


TAEIFF.  393 

book  a  powerful  plea  for  reform  of  some  kind.  It  opens  a 
new  era  for  a  more  practical  common  sense  political  econ- 
omy. Perhaps  George  and  Dixwell  will  read  my  experi- 
ence in  the  currency  and  tariff,  and  aid  in  establishing  a 
Science  of  Good  Government,  based  on  a  strictly  national 
currency,  a  protective  tariff  and  a  wise  civil  service. 

While  they  were  printing  the  last  pages  of  the  book,  I 
was  preparing  this  short  address,  to  be  delivered  February 
1,  1883,  at  the  Meeting  of  "  The  New  York  Association 
for  the  Protection  of  American  Industry?  in  the  large 
Hall  of  Cooper  Institute.  As  it  may  be  my  last  public  ad- 
dress, I  add  it  here  :* 


"  We  have  assembled,  my  friends,  to  call  your  attention 
to  one  of  the  most  important  subjects,  that  can  now  claim 
the  care  of  the  American  people.  The  advocates  of  free 
trade  with  foreign  nations  are  trying  to  persuade  our  Gov- 
ernment and  people,  that  it  is  for  our  interest  to  buy  from 
other  countries  all  the  luxuries  they  have  to  offer. 

"  These  advocates  of  free  trade  propose,  that  our  own 
mechanics  shall  either  work  at  the  starvation  prices  of  the 
foreign  laborers,  or  be  forced  to  abandon  their  trades  and 
become  competitors  with  the  agriculturists  of  the  country. 

"If  we  desire  to  bring  upon  our  whole  Nation  a  fate 
similar  to  that,  which  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  Ireland,  Tur- 
key, Mexico,  and  Hindostan,  it  is  only  necessary  to  arrange 
our  tariff  in  a  way,  that  will  induce  the  people  to  have  all 
their  manufacturing  done  in  foreign  countries,  and  pay  for 
it  with  the  raw  materials  of  our  own.  Such  a  policy  will, 
if  I  am  not  mistaken,  secure  for  our  Union  of  States  as 
rapid  a  decline  and  fall  as  that,  which  fell  to  the  lot  of 
Spain,  when  the  Moors,  her  principal  manufacturers,  were 
driven  out  of  the  country.  Such  a  policy  might  gratify  our 
thirst  for  all  the  dearly  bought  follies  and  fashions  of  Euro- 
pean life ;  but  it  would  bring  ruin  and  wretchedness  upon 

*  Mr.  Cooper  died  April  4,  1883. 


394  TAKIFtf. 

hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  mechanics  of  our  country, 
who  have  nothing  to  sell  but  their  labor. 

"  To  break  up  this  diversified  employment  of  so  vast  a 
number  by  a  change  of  tariff,  and  then  expect  them  to  find 
for  themselves  other  means  of  living,  is  about  as.  reasonable 
as  it  was  for  Pharaoh  to  expect  the  Israelites  to  make  bricks 
without  straw." 

PETER  COOPER. 


ADDRESS.* 

THIS,  gentlemen,  is  an  adjourned  meeting  of  a  Conference 
that  was  called  to  consider  how  and  by  what  we  can  best 
promote  all  the  agricultural,  mechanical  and  mercantile  in- 
terests of  our  common  country. 

It  will  be  recollected  that  a  committee  was  appointed  by 
the  Conference  to  draft  and  report  a  plan,  designed  to  unite 
all  these  industrial  interests  in  a  course  of  efforts  to  spread 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  our  country  those 
facts  and  figures  that  will  enable  all  interested  to  judge 
wisely,  and  advocate  policy  that  will  most  effectually  ad- 
vance the  highest  welfare  of  the  nation. 

When  the  farmers  of  our  country  realize  the  fact,  that  a 
farm  adjoining  a  town  or  factory  that  will  consume  all  their 
surplus  products,  is  naturally  worth  double  the  amount  of  a 
farm  equally  productive  that  requires  one  quarter  of  all  its 
surplus  to  be  expended  to  find  a  market.  When  this  is 
thoroughly  understood  by  the  farming  interests  of  our  coun- 
try, they  will  be  found  to  be  the  warmest  advocates  of  a 
policy,  that  will  make  the  plow,  the  loom  and  the  anvil 
equally  dependent  upon  each  other. 

It  is  of  the  greatest  importance,  that  every  American 
should  know  and  understand  the  fact  that  nations  grow  in 
wealth  and  power  in  proportion  as  they  condense  their  raw 


*  The  following  address  was  overlooked  in  preparing  the  first  edition. 
Its  author  could  not  determine  the  date. 


TARIFF.  395 

materials  by  industry  into  higher  forms  of  value  for  con- 
venient transportation  in  their  own  and  other  countries. 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  England  is  now  drawing  the  life- 
blood  of  other  nations  into  herself  by  the  power  of  her  ma- 
chinery, that  is  doing  the  work  of  untold  millions  of  men. 

This  tremendous  power  of  mechanical  wealth  England  is 
now  exchanging  through  cheap  transportation  for  the  hand 
labor,  and  raw  materials  of  other  countries. 

The  secret  of  England's  enormous  wealth  and  power  will 
appear  when  we  look  at  the  fact,  that  the  exports  of  England 
amounted  in  1857  to  $610,000,000  of  manufactured  goods 
with  only  a  very  small  proportion  of  raw  materials.  Our 
exports  during  the  same  period  were  $338,685,000  with  only 
$30,000,000  of  this  amount  in  manufactured  articles.  Here, 
then,  we  have  two  systems  diametrically  opposed  to  each 
other.  England  exported  $610,000,000  in  185T,  and  nearly 
all  of  this  vast  amount  in  manufactured  articles.  During 
the  same  time  our  country  exported  only  $30,000,000  in 
manufactured  articles. 

England  is  now  by  her  manufacturing  policy  better  able 
to  pay  the  interest  on  her  national  debt  of  $4,000,000,000 
than  she  was  to  pay  the  interest  on  the  debt  she  had  created 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago.  In  addition  to  all  this, 
England  has  invested  in  railroads  $15,000,000,000  since 
1829,  in  her  own  country  and  in  other  parts  of  the  world. 

It  should  never  be  forgotten  that  England  secured  her 
enormous  wealth  and  power  by  a  complete  system  of  pro- 
tection for  every  article  that  gave  employment  to  her  people. 

This  policy  was  continued  until  she  acquired  an  amount 
of  capital  and  skill  as  to  fear  no  competition. 

It  was  unfortunate  for  our  country,  that  our  government 
allowed  our  currency  to  be  as  effectually  debased  by  tolerat- 
ing local  banks  in  the  issue  of  pictures  called  money,  as  it 
would  have  been  if  the  government  itself  had  poured  almost 
any  amount  of  alloy  into  the  gold  and  silver  of  the  country. 

By  this  policy  we  have  so  increased  the  prices  of  all 
property  and  labor  that  we  have  tempted  the  world  to  sell 


396  TAEIFF. 

us  everything,  and  at  the  same  time  we  make  everything 
with  us  too  dear  to  sell  in  return  with  profit.  Our  govern- 
ment is  now  compelled  to  maintain  a  high  tariff  with  large 
internal  taxes,  in  order  to  protect  its  own  interest  and  honor. 
The  only  possible  way  to  enable  the  people  to  pay  the  vast 
amount  of  taxes  required  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  govern- 
ment, will  be  to  maintain  a  policy  that  will  keep  alive  and 
active  all  the  varied  industries  of  our  country.  To  encour- 
age the  industry  of  the  people  in  the  most  effectual  manner, 
our  government  should  collect  its  taxes  from  the  fewest  num- 
ber of  articles  as  the  best  way  to  lessen  the  expense  of  col- 
lecting, and  thus  lighten  the  burdens  of  the  people. 

History  tells  us,  that  "  Free  Trade  between  France  and 
England  occasioned  such  dreadful  disasters  to  an  industry 
that  had  grown  up  under  the  continental  system,  that  it  be- 
came necessary  to  seek  a  speedy  refuge  in  the  prohibitive 
system,  under  the  shield  of  which,  according  to  the  testimony 
of  M.  Dufrin,  the  manufacturing  industry  of  France  doubled 
between  1815  and  1827."  Henri  Richelieu,  in  a  note  to  the 
French  translation,  says:  "In  1828  the  English  policy  was 
revealed  with  great  distinctness  by  the  liberal  Joseph  Hume, 
who  spoke  without  reserve  of.  strangling  the  manufactures 
of  the  continent." 

Sir  Robert  Peel,  with  equal  honesty,  is  said  *  to  have  re- 
marked that,  "  as  an  Englishman,  he  was  in  favor  of  free 
trade,  but  that  he  could  not  speak  in  favor  of  that  doctrine 
were  he  an  American."  It  is  well  for  us  to  remember  it 
as  an  invariable  law  in  political  economy,  that  nations  must 
be  poor  and  weak  in  proportion  as  they  rely  on  the  export 
of  the  raw  materials  of  their  country,  of  which  we  have 
a  striking  illustration  in  the  fact  that  the  average  earnings 
of  each  individual  in  North  Carolina  amounts  only  to  forty- 
nine  (§49)  dollars,  while  the  average  earnings  of  each  in- 
dividual in  North  Massachusetts,  where  they  convert  raw 
materials  into  manufactured  articles  are  one  hundred  and 
sixtv-six  dollars. 

*J 

France,  after  a  long  experience,  has  announced  to  the 


TAKIFF.  397 

world,  through  the  President  of  the  Council,  M.  Baroche, 
its  determination  formally  to  reject  the  principle  of  Free 
Trade  as  incompatible  with  the  independence  and  security 
of  a  great  nation,  and  as  destructive  to  her  noblest  manufac- 
tures. He  then  says  that  "  Protection  must  not  be  blind, 
unchangeable,  or  excessive,  but  the  principle  must  be  firmly 
maintained."  "When  the  people  throughout  the  Southern 
part  of  our  country  realize  the  many  advantages  they  possess 
of  a  mild  climate,  with  cheap  labor,  and  where  all  the 
powers  of  nature  have  combined  to  urge  the  Southern  peo- 
ple to  condense  their  raw  materials  in  forms  of  great  value — 
when  they  do  this  they  will  find  themselves  in  possession  of 
one  of  the  most  favored  spots  on  the  globe. 

After  the  war  of  the  revolution  our  country  remained 
poor  and  feeble,  until,  under  the  lead  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  we 
adopted  the  Protective  policy,  our  country  then  developed 
our  immense  resources  with  unexampled  rapidity. 

Our  history  shows  that,  in  proportion  as  manufacturing 
flourishes,  every  other  interest  flourishes  with  it.  It  will  al- 
ways be  wise  for  men  or  nations  to  gather  wisdom  by  re- 
flecting on  the  history  and  experience  of  the  past. 

PETER  COOPEB. 


INDEX. 


Absenteeism,  123 

Adams,  John,  6,  7 

Alison,  Sir  A.,  54,  55,  76,  78,  124, 

160,  176,  192,  232,  257 
Allen,  Hon.  W.,  62,63 
Allen,  W.  W.,  45 
American  Colonies,  352 
American  Industrial  League,  339- 

346 

Anti-Monopoly,  297 
Anti-Monopoly  League,  295 
Assignats,  13,  14 


B 


Baird,  H.  C.,45 

Ballot-box,  303 

Bank,  United  States,  5,  23,  27,  221, 

222 
Bank  of  England,  55,  127,  135, 137, 

138,  181,  309 

Bankers'  Association,  213,  257 
Bankers'  Magazine,  381 
Bankers'  Convention,  254-265 
Banking  Monopoly,  298 
Barbarism,  203 
Barley,  387 
Bastiat,  M.,  265,  392 
Beck,  Senator,  157-162,  175, 183 
Beecher,   Eev.  Henry  Ward,   260, 

261,  272 

Beecher,  Rev.  Thomas  K,  292 
Belgium,  14 


Belshazzar,  265 
Benton,  222,  233 
Blacksmith,  315,  364 
Bonamy  Price,  2,  371,  373,  380 
Bricklayers'  Union,  64 
Bright,  Hon.  John,  69, 188 
Brooks,  James,  349-354 
Buchanan,  Hon.  Isaac,  136 
Buckwheat,  387 
Bureau  of  Statistics,  385 
Burke,  360 

Burrows,  Hon.  B. ,  267 
Butler,  Hon.  B.,  63 

C 

Cairnes,  Professor,  392 
Caldwell,  John  C.,  48,  197 
Calhoun,  John  C.,  43, 157,  274-277, 

332 

California,  31,  331,  368 
Campbell,  Thomas,  312 
Capital,  87,  302,  304 
Carey,  Henry  C.,  329,  391 
Carolina,  North,  364 
Carpenter,  315,  364 
Castlereagh,  Lord,  311 
Catechism,  Finance,  262-264 
Cattle,  391 

Certificate,  Silver,  306 
Chamber  of  Commerce,  N.  Y.,  160, 

165,  176 
Chase,  Hon.  S.  P.,  8,  4,  139,  165, 

186,  208,  220,  258,  277,  312 
China,  363 


400 


INDEX. 


Chittenden,  Hon.  S.  B.,  190,  191, 

193 

Christ,  242,  254 
Christianity,  254,  255 
Christian  Pulpit,  297 
Citizens'  Association,  357,  358 
Civil  Service,  212,  393 
Clandestine  Legislation,  283 
Club,  Legal  Tender,  127 
Club,  Union  League,  9,  195 
Cochrane,  Hon.  John,  280 
Coin  and  Paper  Currency,  1-313 
Colbert,  328 
Coleman,  Dr.,  326,  327 
Colonial  Treasury  Notes,  221 
Commercial,  St.  Louis,  135 
Commercial  War,  359-370,  376 
Congressional  Record,  69,  110, 120, 

160,  204,  292 
Conkling,  Roscoe,  64 
Consumers,  315,  389,  390,  391 
Contraction,  98,  115,  195 
Convertible,  66,  209 
Copper,  164 
Corn,  357,  387 
Cornell,  Governor,  296 
Corporations,    Danger    from,    224, 

244,  300 

Cotton,  357,  385 

Courier  and  Enquirer,  N.  Y.,  278 
Covode,  Hon.  John,  346-348 
Credit,  87,  186 
Crocker,  Mr.,  179 
Crosby,  Rev.  Howard,  295,  296 
Currency,  per  Head,  120,  206 
Currency,  New  York  Board  of,  278 
Currency,  Small,  198 
Czar,  240 


Daniel,  265 

Dean,  Geo.  W.,  200,  201 

Debt,  Cause  and  Cure  of,  208-213 

Decca,  362 

Demagogues,  298 


Demonetization  of  Silver,  121,  159, 

160,  283,  313 
Deshler,  John  G.,  264 
Diplomats,  365,  372 
Dixwell,  J.  B.,  391-393 
Divine  Right,  196 
Doubleday,  Thomas,  127,  130 
Drew,  JohnG.,  43,  202 
Durant,  Hon.  T.  J.,  61 

E 

Eadie,  John,  280 
East  India  Company,  360 
Editors,  Appeal  to,  187-213 
Edward  III.,  328 
Eppis,  Mr.,  42 
Erie  Canal,  225,  358 
Evarts,  Hon.  W.  M.,  172 
Evening  Post,  N.  Y.,  23,  47,  325 
Evening  Post,  Albany,  147 
Ewing,  Hon.  M.,  282 
Expansion,  98,  115, 195 
Expenses  per  Capita,  281 


Factories,  315 

Farmer,  126, 129,  132,  205, 283,  315, 

329,  349,  353,  367,  389,  390,  391 
February  12,  1873,  283 
Field,  B.  H.,  280 
Field,  Hon.  M.  W.,  6,  61,  75 
Finance  Catechism,  262-264 
Financial  System,  172,  173 
Financial  Policy,  Brief  History  of, 

311-313 

First  National  Bank,  301 
Fiscal  Policy,  283-289 
Folger,  Secretary,  235 
Fox,  Mr.,  360 
Fractional  Currency,  201 
France,  13,  14,  79,  99, 105, 137, 138, 

141,  171,  195,  196,  200,  207,  240, 

306,  328,  336 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  4,  42,  63,  108, 

157,  221,  351,  352,  383,  384 


INDEX. 


401 


Free  Trade,  199,  078,  390 

Free  Trade  League,  American,  3! 

Fullerton,  Mr.,  361 

G 

Gallatin,  Albert,  278 

Garfield,  224,  258,  385 

George,  Henry,  391-393 

Germany,  240 

German  Zollverein,  328 

Goddard,  S.  A.,  309-311 

Gold,  42,  56,  63,  69,  93,  164,  175, 

188,  190,  207,  240,  307,  313,  381 
Good  Government,  187-213 
Gordon,  General,  276 
Government  Stamp,  306 
Grant,  Hon.  U.  S.,  15,  56,  98,  112, 

139,  146,  157,  159,  245,  258 
Graphic,  New  York,  208 
Graves,  Calvin,  277 
Greeley,  Horace,  193,  194 
Greenbacks,  14,  57,  158,  201,  281, 

288,  292-295,  299,  300,  307,  313 
Greenbackers,  292-295 
Greenback  Labor  Party,  308 
Gulliver,  282 


Habeas  Corpus  Act,  310 
Happy  Incident  for  America,  189 
Hardenberg,  Hon.  Mr.,  265-274 
Hayes,  Hon.  R.  B.,  67, 109-124,168- 

177,  203,  224,  283 
Hazeltine,  Hon.  Ira  S.,  290-292 
Hemp,  383 
Herald,  New  York,  61-64,  79-109, 

253,  254,  289 
Hindoo,  360,  362,  363 
Hindoostan,  356,  360,  393 
History,  A  Brief,  of  Finance,  311- 

313 

Hodge,  Rev.  D.  M.,  297,  298 
Holland,  306 
Holman,  Hon.  W.,  304-306 


Home  Market,  315,  367,  379,  390, 

391 

Home  Tooke,  390 
Hubbell,  294 
Hunt,  Wilson  G.,  280 
Huntington,  Mr.,  179 


Inconvertible,  209 

Independent,  New  York,  292-295 

India,  356 

Inflation,  198 

Interconvertible,  10,  121,  207,  212 

Interview,  61-64,  79-109 

Inventors,  315 

Ireland,  231,  352,  356,  393 


Jackson,  Andrew,  23,  221,  222,  233, 

326,  327,  328,  329 
Jamaica  Island,  364 
Jarvis,  John  B.,  47 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  4,  42,  78,  156, 

157,  171,  198,  204,  220,  328,  372 
Johnson,  Reverdy,  79,  80 
Johnson,  Samuel,  390 
Jones,  Senator,  114,  185,  191,  192, 

205 

Jordon,  Edward,  208 
Journal,  Mercantile,  N.  Y.,  61,  387 
Juggernaut,  362 
Jute,  385 


Kent,  Chancellor,  339 
Knights  of  Labor,  249 
Knox,  Comptroller,  235 


Labor,  302,  308 

Laborers,  125,  274,  283,  302 

Lapham,  Mr.,  293 


402 


INDEX. 


Laurence,  Hon.  W.,  349 

Law  Excluding  Bank  Officials  from 

Congress,  6 

Lawrence,  Hon.  C.  W.,  315* 
Laws,  Restrictive,  111 
League,  American  Industrial,  339- 

346 

Leather,  385 
Lee,  General,  340 
Legal  Tender,  2,  3,  4,  5,  57,  99, 158, 

182,  184,  201,  212,  245,268,  311, 

312 

Letter  on  Finance,  75-77 
Letter  to  the  Bankers'  Convention, 

254-265 
Letter  to  the  Voters  of  Maine,  183- 

187 
Letter  to  Hon.  John  Sherman,  148- 

163 

Letter  to  President  Hayes,  109-124 
Letter  to  Hon.  Robert  J.  Walker, 

315-325 

Letter  to  Hon.  H.  Redfield,  325-339 
Lincoln,. Abraham,  301,  302,  340 
Linens,  Imported,  388,  389 
Liverpool,  Lord,  310 
London  Economist,  115 

H 

Macaulay,  361,  362 

Madison,  232,  328 

Mahone,  Senator,  248 

Malachi  Margrowther's  Letters,  56 

Malthus,  391,  392 

Manufacturer,  283,  315,  391 

Market,  329,  353,  367,  379 

Marshall,  Humphrey,  383,  384 

Mason,  315,  364 

Matyr,  De  La,  213-217,  218 

Maynard,  Hon.  Mr.,  69,  119,  188 

McCulloch,  85,  160,  161,  165,  176, 

202 

Mechanics,  274,  283,  315 
Mercantile  Journal,  N.  Y.,  61,  387 
Merchant,  283 


Mill,  Stuart,  391,  392 

Miller,  Mr.,  179,  293 

Mint,  305 

Money,  91,  92,  99 

Money  of  the  Constitution,  300 

Money  Changers,  242 

Mongredien,  M.,  392 

Monopolist,  239,  299 

Monopoly,  163,  274,  296,  299,  304- 

306 

Monroe,  328 
Moors,  356,  393 
Morrill  Tariff,  335,  336 
Moses,  109 

N 

Napoleon,  126, 135,  328 
National  American,  345 
National  Banks,  146,  191,  192,  237, 

304-306 
New  Business  for  National  Banks, 

289 

Newman,  Rev.  Dr.,  290 
New  Haven  Union,  64,  65 
New  York  Board  of  Currency,  278 
New  York  Press  Club,  143-146 
New  York  World,  385 
Nickel,  164,  307 


Oats,  387 

O'Conor,  Hon.  Charles,  23,  31 
Old  State  Bank  Circulation,  158 
Opdyke,  Hon.  Geo.,  279 
Opium,  363 
Over-production,  310 


Pacific  Railroad,  72 
i  Panics,    Periodic,  7,  70,  118,  135, 

199,  222,  231,  311,  312 
Paper  Currency,  172,  207,  220-243 
Paper  Money,  63,  164,  240 


INDEX. 


403 


Paper  Notes,  54 

Paris  Exposition,  100 

Passage  of  the  Silver  Bill,  283 

Party,  Democratic,  295,  296 

Party,  Republican,  295,  296 

Paul,  St.,  186,  242.  243 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  127, 136,  362,  372, 

374 

Pensions.  212 
Peterwalsden,  54 
Petitions  to  Congress,  1,  2,  17,  248- 

253 

Pharaoh,  45,  356,  394 
Phillips,  Wendell,  127,  194,  195 
Plassey,  360 

Platform  of  Greenbackers,  59 
Plumb,  Senator,  247 
Political  Sermons,  297 
Politicians,  290 

Politico-Financial  System,  208-213 
Politics,  107,  297 
Porter,  Rev.  E.  S.,  296,  297 
Portugal,  363,  364 
Post,  Evening,  New  York,   23,  47, 

325 

Post,  Evening,  Albany,  147 
Postal  Savings  Banks,  173,  180 
Press  Club,  New  York,  143-146 
Producers,  315,  389,  390,  391 
Profits  of  National  Banks,  237,  245- 

249 


Railroads,  178 
Ramie,  385 

Re-Charter  of  National  Banks,  246 
Redemption  Fund,  82 
Redemption  Act,  264 
Redfield,  Hon.  H.,  325-339 
Resumption,  245,  246,  282 
Review  of  Comptroller  Knox's  Re- 
port, 244-246 

Revolution,  Cause  of,  365,  366,  367 
Ricardo,  45.  172 
Rice,  385 


Buskin,  261 

Russia,  328,  386,  387 

Rye,  387 

S 

Sage,  Mr.,  179 

Salaries,  Moderate,  212 

Say,  M  ,  391,  392 

Science,  143,  254,  255 

Science  of  Good  Government,  S91, 

393 

Service,  Civil,  212 
Sherman,  Hon.  John,  19.  110,  148- 

163,  173,  174,  179,  180,  202,  203, 

204,  213,  224,  255,  377,  378 
Shultz,  Jackson  S.,  371-375 
Shylock,  117,  235 
Silk,  385 
Silver,  63,  93,  121,  '164,  175,  190, 

240,  245,  283,  285,  287,  307,  381 
Silver  Certificates,  306 
Silver  Bill  Passage,  285 
Small  Paper  Currency,  198,  268 
Smith,  Adam,  391,  392 
Smith,  Goldwin,  293 
Solon,  145 
South,  391 
Spaulding,  Hon.  E.  G.,  68,  119, 120, 

158,  187,  206,  277 
Specie,  133,  181,  189,  310,  313 
Spencer,  Herbert,  44,  181 
Spinner,  F.  E.,   13,   119,  159,  202, 

234,  235 
Stamp      of      Government     Makes 

Money,  164 
Steele,  Mr.,  58 
Stephens,  Thaddeus,  52 
Stewart,  A.  T.,  6 
Stilwell,  Silas  M.,  3,  4,  5,  208-213, 

220 

Strikes,  117,  207,  249 
Sub-Treasury,  213,  312,  322,  ?23 
Sugar,  364,  385 
Su*>lus  of  $150,000,000,  241 
Switzerland,  14 


404 


INDEX. 


Tariff,  315-394 

Tariff  Commissioners,  375-383 

Telegram,  New  York  Evening,  281 

Tilden,  Hon.  S.,  63,  67,  76 

Thurman,  Senator,  385 

Tillman,  Hon.  Mr.,  289 

Times,  New  York,  201,  202 

Tobacco,  385 

Tramps,  250 

Treasury  Notes,  3,  4,  57,  158,  270, 

373 

Tribune,  New  York,  23,  195,  372 
Turkey,  356,  393 
Tyranny  of  the  Money  Power,  296 


Union  League  Club,  9, 195 
United  States  Bank,  5,  23,  27,  221, 

222 
Usury,  208 


Vanderbilt,  W.,  179 
Venice,  Bank  of,  223,  373 
Voorhees,  Senator,  283-289 
Vortex,  86 

W 

Wade,  Hon.  B.  F.,  345 
Wages,  93 

Walker,  Hon.  Robert  J.,  315-325 
War  against  Legal  Tenders,  245 


War,  Commercial,  359-370 
Ward,  Hon.  E.  B.,  341,  380 
Warner,  Hon.  Richard,  236-243, 249 
Warning  to  Greenback  Men,  308 
Warren,  Marwin,  124 
Washington,  George,  240,  280,  318, 

'328 

Waterloo,  126,  135 
Watson,  Wilson,  281,  386 
Weaver,  General,  298-304 
Webster,  Daniel,  42,  123,  157,  168, 

199,  207,  232,  250,  259,  377 
Wells,  David  A.,  349,  350,  392 
West,  391 

West  Indies,  363,  364 
Westmacot,  Captain,  362 
Wheat,  387 
White,  Professor,  13 
Williams,  John  Earl,  19,  196,  197, 

233,  274 

Wilson,  Hon.  H.,  348 
Winder,  W.  H.,  281 
Wool,  385 

Wool  Growers,  334,  335 
Workingmen,  201,  308 
Workshops,  315 
World,  New  York,  385 


Yatman,  JohnV.,  279 
Yonge,  Mr.,  26 


Zamindas,  861 
Zollverein,  German,  328 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 


Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


DEC  22  1947 


REC-D  *-*-» 

WAY  2  5  1960 


LD  21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 


24205 


VERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


